


Darcy Lewis and Co.

by notoneforreality



Series: Darcy Lewis & Co. and Affiliated Stories [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (as in more of them, Awesome Darcy Lewis, BAMF Darcy, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Badly, Clint Barton & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Crossover, Darcy Lewis Protection Squad, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Darcy is deceptive, Darcy is the fandom bicycle and I love it, Darcy on a rampage, Darcyland, E-mail, Experiments, Explosions, F/F, F/M, Gods, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, M/M, Multi, Nick Fury Needs A Hug, Nick Fury is Darcy Lewis's Father, Nick Fury is a Good Bro, POV Alternating, Parent Nick Fury, Parent!Nick Fury, Phil Coulson is Darcy Lewis's Father, Poetry, Pride, Randomly named made up lab equipment, SCIENCE!, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Science!People, Science!Wranglers, ScienceWrangler!Darcy, Secret Identity, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, Words, agent!darcy, anxiety and depression, dealing with grief, inaccurate science, new bots, other than Thor), overprotective Darcy, percy jackson - Freeform, poet!darcy, re-written backstories, shield!darcy, sort of, soulbond, wounded and prosthetic-less Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love Darcy and all ships with her so this is a gigantic collection of one-shots of anything I write that is Darcy-centric because who doesn't love BAMF Darcy Lewis? Tags will be updated as I go.</p><p>[any lab equipment is made up by me by shmushing together random sciencey-sounding words]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There Are Worse People to be Soulbonded To (Darcy/Tony)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has a slew of rude, accusatory words scrawled across her collarbone and she hates them. When she finally hears them, she's not inclined to stay and gush.
> 
> Or: Tony Fucks Up As Usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not Avengers: Age of Ultron or Captain America: Civil War compliant

Darcy woke up, brushed her teeth, scowled at her collarbone in the mirror, brushed her hair and traipsed into the kitchen to make breakfast. Her usual morning routine. The scowling at the collarbone was on account of the words scrawled across it in worse handwriting than a first grader, although the language was considerably above what was usually expected from a first grader, which explained the scowling.

Darcy was late — also a part of the usual morning routine, although she was forever coming up with more and more creative ideas to try and conquer her chronic tardiness — and she muttered darkly to herself as she grabbed her travel mug filled with her special blend latte (because Starbucks was a rip off and she could make better coffee than them anyway). She didn’t live too far away from the Avengers Tower, just far enough to feel a little less claustrophobic than if she were stuck in the same building with the same people every hour of the day, so there was only a ten minute window in which Jane had the opportunity to blow something up. Hopefully the workshop was still intact.

Ten minutes was too late. Ten minutes was far too late. Darcy stared in horror at the mostly-blackened remains of what had been a sparkling white lab when she had left it two nights before. Jane was sat on the floor, cross-legged, staring desolately at a tiny, silver cog. The simple, woeful look on Jane’s face, however, did not account for the angry shouting swearing coming from somewhere within the lab. Darcy took a deep breath and, ignoring the unidentified voice, picked her way through the wreckage to Jane.

“What is Rule Number One?” She said, arms crossed as she looked down at the scientist who was supposed to be an adult woman.

“’Don’t use the machines without Darcy because Darcy is the lab-tech-whisperer’.” Jane recited morosely. Darcy sighed and helped haul Jane off the floor.

“What one was it?”

“The nuclei partition centrifugal devider.”

Darcy crossed her arms again and narrowed her eyes.

“Rule Number Two?”

“’Absolutely definitely no interdimensional astrophysics or nuclear experiments when Darcy is not in the lab’.”

“So you broke two rules. That’s why the lab exploded.” Jane winced. “What?”

Darcy just about heard Jane’s confession to breaking four rules when she found out the third for herself. Tony Stark came into sight around a smouldering heap of metal which looked like it had once been the orbital path recorder. Rule Number Three was ‘No fellow Science!People in the labs unless a Science!Wrangler was present’ (each Avengers scientist had their own personal wrangler, although Darcy tended to ride heard on all of them most of the time. Rhodey was in charge of Tony because he was the only one Tony would listen to usually; Pepper was in charge of Bruce because she had experience working with Tony; Darcy was forever and always Jane’s girl).

“Who the fuck are you, why are you in my tower and get the fuck out please and thank you. No civilians near explode-y dangerousness and science shit.”

“Well fuck you too.”

Tony screeched to a halt, gaping, and Darcy’s collarbone burned, but she ignored it and continued to talk to Jane.

“What other rule did you break?”

“Rule Seven,” Jane confessed. Darcy took in the dishevelled look of her friend and sighed. Rule Number Seven: No entering the lab until at least seven o’clock on a weekday (weekends negotiable). “What time did you come down?”

Jane made a face and mumbled something. Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“Four. Yesterday morning.”

Darcy pursed her lips.

“I took one day off…”

Behind her, Tony was still making gasping, screechy noises. Jane peered around Darcy’s head to look at him, then pulled back and looked at Darcy’s shoulder. Darcy’s scarf covered the words from the general population, but her and Jane had been too close for too long for the scientist to not know what they said. Jane flicked her eyes pointedly from Darcy to Tony. Darcy scowled.

“No. J.A.R.V.I.S., can you get some housebots in here, please?”

“No problem, Miss Lewis — (Tony shrieked. “She knows my bots! She knows my AI! J.A.R.V.I.S., you traitor!”) — Is Sir okay?”

“He’ll be fine, J. Don’t worry about it.”

Jane blinked at Darcy as several bots that looked like they might once have been roombas in the past century or so zoomed in through the open lap door and started cleaning the work area.

“He…he did say…didn’t he?” Jane asked. Darcy steered her towards the door.

“Yep, but he’s a dick so I’m not acknowledging it.”

A keening sound came from behind them as the lad door hissed shut.

* * *

 

Admittedly, there were worse people to be soulbonded to. He had (some) morals, a lot of money, and, most importantly, he lived in a tower that he had built that made life like living in the USS Enterprise. He had robots crawling out of the woodwork — actually, Darcy wasn’t sure there was enough wood in the entire building to make even a single tree — and an AI butler who ran the whole building. He saved people’s lives, created clean energy, and did weird and wonderful science experiments, which was something Darcy could definitely get behind after years of tailing Jane. His best friend was military, his best gal pal was the second most badass woman Darcy knew (Natasha was first, obviously) and he had a kid called Dummy (okay, so Dummy was actually Dum-E, a service bot, but when Darcy had first been introduced, she imagined it as Dummy in her head, and it fit the mischievous kid-bot a lot more than its actual name).

Jane slouched reluctantly in front of Darcy as she dragged them both to the kitchen area where Natasha and Clint were lounging across each other whilst eating pancakes. Darcy shoved Jane at a chair and narrowed her eyes at Clint.

“Are you eating my pancakes.”

Clint’s enthusiastic chewing slowed, and he swallowed. Darcy watched his adam’s apple bob.

“No?”

“Wrong answer. I get free choice on mini movie nights for a month.”

“What?! What about Natasha?!”

Darcy smiled sweetly and leaned in very close.

“Natasha is very, very scary,” she whispered. Clint scowled, and Natasha looked smug.

“Don’t worry, Clint, she’s just bitchy because Tony said her words and they’re not very nice words no they are not.”

Natasha and Clint exchanged a look. Darcy turned to glare at Jane, then bustled around the kitchen to start cooking up something with lots of sugar and calories. Twenty-seven hours was by no means the longest stretch Jane had spent in the lab without breaks, but even after twenty-four she tended to sound drunk when trying to speak in anything that wasn’t Science!. Science! Was not an official language as recognised by the American Government, but Darcy was working on them. Pepper, Natasha, Steve, Clint, Rhodey and Bruce had signed the petition she wrote up. Tony and Jane’s signatures were on there, too. Tony’s forged by Pepper and Jane’s forged by Darcy. Both had plenty of practice signing bills and stuff when their scientist was too involved with the latest equations. That was about the time Darcy really fell in love with the high-heeled power woman of the year.

Nevertheless, Natasha and Clint were both now watching her. Both of them pretended to be completely unreadable except to each other, but Darcy had learned that if you payed attention, they talked with their eyes. They had about a hundred main ‘looks’, with variations and combinations. This particular one was ‘we feel sorry for you but we know you’ll punch Clint if we say it’. Darcy continued cooking. She’d also learnt that the ability to read both of them as easily as she could read Jane was a skill best kept a secret.

“Tony Stark is an asshole and a dick and until he stops squeaking like a fucking hamster down in Jane’s lab and comes up to actually talk to me then I’m not even looking at him.”

“Wait, why was Stark in Doc Foster’s lab?” Clint leant his elbow on the breakfast bar and propped his chin up. “Talking about Doc’s lab, how come she isn’t in t?”

“It went boom. Quietly,” Jane giggled. Clint locked eyes with Darcy, and took the plate of pancakes and sausages that Darcy held out for Jane.

“I’ve got her.” Clint carried the plate and lead Jane to the elevator, just before the doors closed, he grinned wickedly. “You and Tasha have a good chat!”

Darcy froze, and turned slowly to smile at the red-head.

“Uh, I think Steve’s calling me,” she tried. Natasha’s grin was slightly less deadly than the one she used on marks, but not be much.

“Sit. It’s girl talk time.”

* * *

 

Two hours later, Natasha was finally telling Darcy how she and Clint met, and Darcy was listening avidly, until the elevator opened to reveal a very despondent, very drunk Tony Stark. Natasha unceremoniously shoved Darcy over the back of the couch, and Darcy toppled down with only minor grunts of pain. She sat up, brushed herself of, and leaned against the back of the couch. A moment later, Natasha’s hand appeared above her head holding Darcy’s mostly-full seventh mug of coffee. Darcy took it gratefully.

On the other side of the couch, Darcy could hear Tony stumbling about.

“Who is the…the scary girl. The one with…uh…big…crossy arms and friend wi’ J. J. She had rules…I don’t like rules, NatNat the scary cat. No, wait, you’re a spider. Ugh, spiders are scary. No, wait, there was a point. It was…oh, who is the scary mama dragon? You know, don’t you? You know everything NatNa’.”

Darcy heard a barely-concealed snort of amusement from Natasha herself.

“Are you even going to remember this tomorrow.”

There was a long, drawn out pause.

“Noah, but I have a secret weapon. J.A.R.V.I.S., what’s my secret weapon? Wait no J.A.R.V.I.S. is my secret weapon. See if you tell me, I can get J.A.R.V.I.S. to tell me later.”

“J.A.R.V.I.S. already knows who she is.”

“Shhhhhhhhhh. I know. He’s a traitor.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you who she is. You can find out for yourself, like maybe by talking to her like a normal person?”

There was a slurred noise that Darcy thought might have been an attempt at an indignant scoff, and then a heavy thump that Darcy felt through the floor. When Tony’s voice next float up, it was muffled, and she peered under the couch to see the man lying face down in rug.

“You are a mean lady Natalie. A very mean lady.”

“Yes. Now go to sleep.”

Five minutes later, Tony was already snoring. Darcy stood up and beamed at Natasha.

“Thanks Nat!”

“No problem. Hopefully he’ll pull his head out of his ass and come and speak to you, and do me a favour? Don’t run away from him.”

Darcy’s smile faltered slightly, so she changed the subject.

“Do you want help getting him up to his rooms?”

“Don’t worry about it, he can stay here.”

Darcy went and found Rhodey anyway. Part of the reason Tony had crashed was a Science!Bender anyway, so his Science!Wrangler could sort him out.

* * *

 

Tony came and found her the next afternoon, when Darcy had finally given in and allowed Jane back into the now-rebuilt lab. He was wearing a suit and his hair was gelled like he was going to a gala, but J.A.R.V.I.S. had warned Darcy that Tony was trying to make a good impression because he was nervous, and so she managed to hide the laughter that was bubbling up inside of her.

Jane disappeared behind a neutron collider to let them talk.

They talked for an hour, during which Tony lost his coat and his tie and ended up with his sleeves rolled up and tinkering with the nuclei partition centrifugal divider which was still out of order. Darcy kept one hand on it because the machines seemed to like her, but it seemed to have warmed up to Tony as he fiddled with it while they talked.

By the time Tony left, they had arranged to go out to the tiny café around the corner from Darcy’s flat the next day. Two days later Tony showed Darcy her words wrapped around his ribs. Three days later Darcy stopped wearing her scarf. No one says anything about the words, or about the fact that Jane has moved into Tony’s lab so Darcy can keep an eye on both of them.

* * *

 

Two weeks later Darcy moves into Tony’s penthouse. Pepper buys Darcy her own Louboutins as a consolation prize. Darcy gives Tony a kiss to cheer him up and Jane hides behind the new orbital path recorder. Darcy debates shouting ‘Thor’ at her, but Tony’s lips are soft and warm and she melts into him instead.

 

There are worse people to be soulbonded to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, as it says at the beginning, all the equipment is made up by using random words I sort of remember from GCSE science. Sorry the ending kinds sucks, I didn't know how to round it off without it needing like four more chapters so I just sort of skimmed over it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and come back from more.


	2. In Which Everyone is Surprised Except Like Maybe Four People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy hates Steve Rogers more than she hates unfrosted poptarts, and that's saying something.
> 
> Or: Five (or Ten) Reasons Darcy hates Steve Rogers (and One Reason she doesn't)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post Avengers: Age of Ultron, not Captain America: Civil War compliant

Darcy dislikes Steve Rogers for five reasons, which is a shame because she wanted to like him. He’s supposed be cool and awesome and righteous and all that shit, and her grandad had been obsessed with him.

Reason One is because he gets Jane to move in with the Avengers. She had been subtly trying for about two years to convince Jane to move to Stark Tower, and he comes along and gets them packed up for the new Avengers Compound in two days. It might have helped that he actually asked her in so many words, but Darcy couldn’t do that because of reasons.

(Reason One-Point-Five: he only stayed for about ten minutes, conveniently when Darcy was out stocking up on PopTarts because Thor was in town and she doesn’t trust him in a store after the Great Walmart Debacle of 2k14. Which means she never met him, and Captain America is supposed to be cool. Like, he’s the epitome of All Things Good and American, right?)

When they move into the compound, Darcy’s on navigation because Jane would get lost in a bathroom if it was possible, let alone a full blown compound the size of a small town, and also because she’s seen the schematics of the building and memorised them. People stare at them as Darcy powers straight through to their rooms, dragging one of those trolleys from Ikea she managed to…acquire a few years back piled high with cardboard boxes containing about half her life and most of Jane’s. Jane follows, her arms cradling yet more containers and bags, still asking how Darcy knows where the hell she’s going. The sentiment seems echoed by most of the personnel they pass. 

When they reach their area, Clint Barton is waiting for them. Darcy beams and drops the handle of the trolley to leap at him. Jane, vision obscured by the things in her arms, trips over it. Darcy winces and Clint lets her down so they can help pick all the bits up, and together they drag it all into the living space.

“How did you know we were coming?” Darcy asks once they’ve unpacked the coffee machine and three mugs and nothing else. Darcy’s perched on a box labelled ‘Darcy’s books of shit’, Jane is on the floor and Clint is sat on a box with ‘DARCY’S SHOES’ scrawled on the front in spiky letters. Darcy likes her shoes. She had to work hard to earn them.

“Cap mentioned about moving a Doctor Foster up to please Thor and I took a wild guess that you would be among her belongings."

“Darcy was very insistent that we came,” Jane puts in. Darcy scowls at her.

“Aw, did you miss Big Brother Barton?”

Darcy grins again and punches Clint in the left shoulder.

“If you tell anyone that, I’ll tell them about the bar fight at Viv’s.”

Clint looks horrified.

 

Reason Two for Darcy’s dislike of Steve Rogers is because he blames Tony for Ultron. Darcy finds this out from Clint while they’re drinking in their empty apartment, and starts scowling at the floor. Clint’s confused, but he’s familiar enough with Darcy to not ask questions. Jane, however, is a special case. She can, and does ask questions. Darcy asks Clint where everyone else is right now and tells Jane that she’ll find out if she comes along. Clint tells her that most of the Avengers are in the training area of the compound, except for Colonel Rhodes, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Darcy asks the building where the latter three are, and jumps when a woman’s voice comes through the invisible speakers she knows are dotted around the building. She’d heard that something had happened to J.A.R.V.I.S., but she hadn’t processed it properly because how could anything happen to J.A.R.V.I.S.? He was an AI. Clint watches Darcy’s wide, watery, panicked eyes, and asks how she knew the building was sentient. She tells him in a halting voice that she thought Tony Stark had a male AI, and Clint explains about Vision.

Darcy sets her jaw and stalks out of the room, threading her way through the maze of corridors to where Clint had said the Avengers were. Clint and Jane trail behind her, and she can hear them discussing her unexpected knowledge of the building. Darcy ignores them and asks the new AI, who she thinks is called F.R.I.D.A.Y., to take the elevator down.

She marches through the training grounds, ignoring the stares she gets from everyone using the space for what it was designed. A man with purplish skin and a cloak rippling in a non-existent wind is hovering over near a girl with long, dark hair and a shimmering pink-red rising off her body. She stops dead in the middle of the floor. After a long moment during which everyone is staring at Darcy except the man and the girl, he turns his head and spots Darcy in the centre of the silence and floats over and touches down gently just in front of her. Darcy stares at him for a few minutes, then bursts into tears and throws herself into his arms.

“Shh.” He sways gently and strokes her hair calmly and soothingly. There is still no noise from the other occupants of the room. They hug for a long while, then Darcy pulls back and looks up into the strange face.

“Say something,” she demands.

“It’s me, I promise,” Vision says in J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice, and Darcy hugs him tight again before stepping away properly.

She then takes the time to survey the room, and she narrows her eyes when they land on Steve Rogers.

He’s the first person to open his mouth and ask who she is (which is Reason Two-Point-Five: he doesn’t already know who she is) and Clint and Jane introduce her — Jane as her lab assistant and Clint, speaking mostly to the red-head who Darcy is pretty sure is the Black Widow, which is awesome, says that she’s the girl from New Mexico that caused the problems. Darcy’s proud of that. It’s a family thing.

Which reminds her that she has to go find the three people missing from the gathering.

She gets one last hug from Vision, then moves back through the training grounds and towards the area at the back of the compound which Tony had claimed for himself. There’s some debate behind her along the lines of ‘what the fuck just happened and what the fuck is going on’ before she has an entourage. Darcy lets her jacket shift slightly so they can see the taser in her pocket, but doesn’t say anything.

Colonel Rhodes is the first person they run into. He’s standing outside a room, watching a shouting match going on within, and Darcy sneaks up behind him and jumps onto his back. He stumbles but his arms hook around her legs to hold her up and her rolls his eyes with a fond laugh.

“You’re getting too big for that now, Darce.”

“Shhh, I will always be seven years old, forever and always.”

Rhodey chuckles again but Darcy slides back down to the floor anyway. Rhodey turns around and takes in the crowd behind her with a raised eyebrow. Darcy shakes her head at him and asks what’s going on between Pepper and Tony, who are the two fighting inside the room. Rhodey’s eyes run over the group that followed her and he ducks his head and lowers his voice.

“He’s not doing to great, Darce. He’s blaming himself, and so are most of the others, and he’s given up. Pep’s terrified. She doesn’t know what to do.”

Darcy reads ‘most of the others’ as Steve and nods. They straighten up, and Darcy peers around the older man into the room.

“I’ll go talk to them.”

Someone makes a noise behind her, either in protest, warning or disbelief, but Darcy ignores them and steps into the room. Pepper sees her first, because Tony is languishing on a couch surrounded by glass bottle in varying degrees of emptiness and Pepper is facing the door. Her eyes immediately shine with relief and she stops her rant to take a deep breath.

“Darcy!” Darcy beams at her, but Tony makes an angry noise.

“Darcy is in London and you know it. Don’t you dare tell her about this. Don’t tell her about any of it. I don’t want her to know.”

Darcy’s heart sinks, and she picks her way around the couch to hug Pepper, when she turns around, Tony’s expression is halfway between dismay, disbelief and shining hope, and Darcy grins at him anyway and opens her arms. Tony grunts, but he picks himself up and stumbles over to catch Darcy up in a rib-crushing embrace. He’s nearly crying into her hair and it’s Darcy now who’s shushing him gently, until he sets her down and looks her over.

“I thought you were in London. Thor said you were in London.”

“Yeah, well Jane needed a bigger space, and I needed to make sure you were okay.” He’s not, and they both know that, but she doesn’t bring it up. “I heard about Sokovia.”

Tony makes a pained noise in the back of his throat and glares at Pepper over her shoulder.

“I had to tell her something.”

“Is this why you haven’t called me?”

Tony shrugged.

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”

Darcy hugs Tony this time. He holds on to her tight, and she whispers in his ear to tell him they have an audience. Tony scowls and stands up to turn and order them away. They don’t move. Darcy sighs and turns around.

“Aunt Pepper, get rid of them.”

The group through the door explodes with questions but Pepper ushers them away with the experienced expertise of someone used to dealing with the press.

Darcy lets Tony get back to the couch and cleans up the bottle for him, taking the most recent one from him with only mild complaining, an achievement she’s quite proud of. Once the room is slightly more tidy, she joins him, and they sit together on the couch for the rest of the afternoon.

 

Reason Three for Darcy’s dislike of Steve Rogers is that he is on Wanda’s side. Tony admits to Darcy that Steve probably doesn’t realise how much Wanda affected him, but Darcy still doesn’t like it. Tony gives he a watered down version of what he saw when Wanda short-circuited his brain — she can tell, even though he doesn’t say that’s what he’s doing — and it pisses her off more than a little that his greatest fear had been losing all of his team members, and they had shoved him away anyway. He had some fucked up coping strategies, but everyone knew that already and it was hardly surprising given his history. Tony told her not to do anything about it, so she obediently waits until he falls asleep to slip out of his rooms and ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. where Wanda Maximoff is right now. F.R.I.D.A.Y. obligingly tells her that she’s in the main kitchen area with Vision. Darcy tells F.R.I.D.A.Y. to bring the lift up.

The group in the kitchen is significantly smaller than the size of the one in the gym; Steve, Wanda and Vision are grouped around a stainless steel breakfast bar, Steve preparing some sort of food, and Vision and Wanda talking to each other.

“Apologise.”

Wanda gasps and flinches violently away from Darcy as she appears in front of her, almost falling off her stool before Vision catches her. Steve begins to say her name in a warning tone and Vision gives her a look, but J.A.R.V.I.S. learnt long ago that very little could stop Darcy on a rampage.

“I don’t understand,” Wanda says, her eyes wide, her accent soft and lilting.

“Apologise to Tony.”

Wanda stares at her. The faint tinge of red-pink that creeps into her eyes reminds Darcy of whatever had latched onto Jane in London and the tightening in her stomach makes her clench her teeth.

“For what?”

“For what you did for him when they tried to stop Ultron getting his hands on the vibranium.”

“He killed my parents. Pietro and I saw his name on the weapons. He killed them and the rest of our town and never even thought about us again.”

“He never knew about the double-dealing. That was Obie’s fault. He never knew, and he’s spent every second since he found out nearly killing himself to try and make up for it, to try and cancel it out.”

“He killed my parents.”

Darcy snaps.

“My father never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it!” Darcy screams. Steve flinches, and out of the corner of her eye, Darcy registers Clint, Nat and Jane freeze halfway into the room. “I nearly lose him on a regular basis because he’s trying to make amends! He fucked up with Ultron because that’s what Dad does: he freaks out and he fucks up and then he fixes it! And you made him believe that it was all for nothing! That he had killed everyone he cared for! You fucking apologise to him or I will shoot you with so much electricity that you’ll be buzzing for a month! _Do you understand me!?”_

Wanda swallows and ducks her head, looking around the room at everyone who has been looking at her since Darcy had revealed what Tony saw. Vision sighs.

“Darcy—“

“No. I love you, but no. Dad deserves an apology.”

With that, Darcy turns on her heel and somehow manages to walk calmly until she’s out of sight. Then she breaks into a run, fleeing the rest of the group as fast as she can. They have a lot to process with everything Darcy’s just dumped onto them, and she’s plenty willing to give them some space to digest it.

(Reason Three-Point-Five is that Steve makes Wanda apologise, and Tony thinks it was the Captain’s idea.)

 

Reason Four for Darcy’s dislike of Steve Rogers is that Tony loves him. Darcy first sees it about two days after the whole ‘Tony Stark is my father, I am his daughter, I will kill anyone who hurts him because he is actually trying to kill himself half the time’ bombshell (which Darcy conveniently ‘forgot’ to tell Tony about) when Tony finally makes an appearance in the common areas. He’s still guarded, and everyone else is still slightly off-kilter from the new knowledge, both of Darcy and his demons, so Tony sits pressed into the arm of the sofa and Darcy curls into his side like an over-protective cat.

The first hour passes well enough, but then Steve and Clint come in laughing and joking from their training session. Clint blinks and a step falters, but otherwise he just nods to Darcy and Tony and finds Natasha in the pile of people on the floor staring up at the TV screen which had been playing random episodes of nature documentaries for some reason (Clint later reveals it was Natasha, and Darcy and the woman make Wonderful World Wednesdays a standing appointment to watch whatever documentaries they can find that interest them. Natasha likes ones about weird animals, like most Madagascan varieties, and the freakish things that leave in the deep sea. Darcy just likes David Attenborough’s voice).

Steve, however, stops dead and stares until he remembers himself. Before he moves of, though, Tony’s body does a strange sort of shudder, and Darcy frowns and peers up at Tony’s face. His face is as expressive as his voice; it’s like a foreign language, with everything all mixed up and needing decoding, but it’s all there. Tony’s current expression is a tumbled mix of discomfort, betrayal, sadness and an overwhelming longing. Darcy blinks and turns back around to stare at Steve, who coughs uncomfortably and shuffles off with a flushed face to fight for space on the other couch.

Darcy doesn’t bring it up with Tony because she’s not stupid, but she wants to do something about it because Steve is quite clearly either blind or the most oblivious person Darcy has ever met in her life, and she’s best friends with Jane and Erik, both of whom would be unaware of a bomb going off outside their respective labs. The fact that Tony likes a man is hardly a revelation — the media seemed to love to idea of Stark being a ladies man, and yet even in their most desperate attempts to portray him as a whore they didn’t mention the scandalous truth that Tony is just as happy to sleep with a man as he is with a woman — but anyone would have been easier than Steve.

(Steve proves his complete and utter lack of perception two weeks later, along with Reason Four-Point-Five: he has no understanding of Tony whatsoever. They’re back from one mission, and the next day Steve’s rounding them up again. When they come back, Darcy rounds on Steve because yeah it takes a bit of effort to understand Tony, and he’s a master at acting like he’s okay, but anyone who’s been around him for longer than a week knows that he walks with the most ridiculously short steps in the world, but they’re as regular as the second hand of a clock and Tony might not be dragging his leg along with his hands, but he’s still limping quite significantly, and If Steve had bothered looking then he would have seen it before the second mission.)

Darcy brings it up with Pepper first and is pleased to find out that Pepper has noticed too.

“We could try talking to Steve,” Pepper suggests. Darcy scowls and goes to find Natasha instead.

Natasha is of less help than Pepper. When Darcy tells her, her eyes go wide, and then she disappears. Darcy huffs and goes to join Jane in the lab to make sure no minor explosions have occurred in her absence.

After two more weeks of Tony gazing wistfully at Steve, Darcy corners him and forces him to admit his feelings. Darcy feels very smug, but she doesn’t really know what to do with the information.

 

Reason Five for Darcy’s dislike of Steve Rogers is that he’s actually a cool person. She likes him, really. He may have pissed her off quite often, but he goes out of his way to be civil and even gentlemanly towards her. He helps her chivvy the Avengers around, which has sort of become her unofficial job at the compound, helps her organise team-bonding nights, helps her look after Jane, and even helps her look after Tony. He talks to her, apologises for his behaviour without prompting, explains his side without making it an excuse or expecting forgiveness (although in her head Darcy grants him it pretty quickly. Not immediately, but pretty quickly).

They take to having breakfast together, as Darcy rarely found herself able to sleep past half eight, which was usually about the time Steve got in from his routine morning run. Steve tells Darcy stories about the Howling Commandos, Darcy tells Steve stories about growing up with Tony. She reckons it’s an even trade. Eventually their repertoires expand and they learn most things about each other. Darcy makes fast friends with most of the others thanks to Steve’s help (Natasha Romanoff is Darcy’s idol, especially after she realises that Natasha was Natalie, the infamous assistant Darcy heard about every time either Pepper or Tony had picked up the phone) and Steve even gently encourages her to actually look at Wanda.

It turns out, that when she isn’t having her brain screwed by H.Y.D.R.A., or half-mad with terror and grief, Wanda is a pretty chill girl. Wonderful World Wednesdays become Woman Wednesdays and Darcy says fuck it and invites Pepper and Jane too. The boys learn to stay well away every midweek.

(Reason Five-Point-Five is that part of Darcy still wants to hate Steve Rogers just on principle, for all of the above reasons, but he makes it very hard to do that. She still pretends in her head that she hates him, just to keep herself happy, but then _it_ happens.)

 

The Reason Darcy adores Steve Rogers, the Reason she forgets about everything else that he has ever done, is because he looks adorable in his fancy tailored suit, holding the bunch of flowers like they’re necessary and even a good idea at all. She’s watching him through the glass window in the door of the stairwell, and although she doesn’t know most of their exact locations, she knows the rest of the group is situated similarly. Steve keeps fidgeting and shuffling his feet, and the way he’s vexing the hem of his suit jacket means that the stitching is going to be ruined by the end of the night if he continues.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. informs Steve that the car is waiting outside for them when they’re ready, and Steve huffs, his sharp eyes peering down the corridor. Darcy knew this would happen, which is why she sent Pepper to kick some ass into gear, and why finally, _finally,_ Tony steps out of the shadows of the corridor and makes a tentative movement towards Steve. Both of them look like they’ve spent far too long in the sun, bright red from their hairlines down, and both avoid each other’s eyes, until they get close enough for Steve to press the bouquet of flowers into Tony’s hand. Tony freaks out, Darcy can see it in his eyes as he stares blankly at the blooms, wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do with organic life forms because there’s a reason he sticks to metal. Luckily Pepper is again on hand to smoothly take the bunch from him, drop the car keys into his hand and push him towards Steve. Darcy half expects her to give him a curfew, but then the two men are gone and everyone suddenly materialises in the hall they just vacated to celebrate.

(Darcy sees more than one lot of money change hands, but for the first time since moving into the Avengers’ Compound, she finally feels like she belongs, so she let's it go just this once.)

(She starts writing a speech about how they’re a family just to piss them all off.)

(More than one pair of eyes are suspiciously wet by the time she finishes reading it three days later.)

 


	3. Woven Words and Wounded War-Heroes (Darcy/Bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky knows a chirpy italian lady in a bookshop with an elusive resident poet, and Darcy is an artist who manages to re-write his life too.
> 
> Or: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait (and Both of Them Have Been Waiting Forever)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU featuring Poet!Darcy, WoundedVet!Bucky, StillActiveSoldier!Steve and mia bella Bella. (camoes from Cat!Thor, Cat!Loki and Autistic!Jane.)

Darcy painted murals with her words, made the stars dance with the rhythm of her syllable, took photos of breathtaking moments with her rhymes.

She didn’t have a last name. The poems appeared once a week in a sheaf of loose papers tied with a bow in the same blue ribbon, two fingers wide, left on the small table just inside the tiny independent bookshop at the wrong end of the highstreet. They were sold for twenty-five cents a poem, with all proceeds going to charity to raise money for autism research. Bucky always bought at least two with whatever spare change he could find. It wasn’t always easy, but Bucky rated Darcy’s poems with fod, water and rent; he needed them to survive.

As much as he wanted to, Bucky never saw who delivered the poems. They were always there on Tuesday morning, regular as the morning sun, but no matter how early Bucky dragged himself down to the shop, he never saw anyone other than Bella, the plump, friendly, Italian owner of the shop. Every week, Bella would smile at him and greet him pleasantly, open the shop, and let him head straight to the table where the week’s collection of poems would be ready in their little bow.

This week, Bucky had been outside the front of the shop since six o’clock that morning, watching the sun rise over the tops of the other stores on the high street and sipping from his overpriced coffee. Bella appeared at half past eight as usual, rosy cheeks and bright eyes and a jangle of keys dangling from her hand.

“Ciao, soldato, how long have you been here?”

“Oh, um, not long,” Bucky muttered, going red.

“Bugiardo,” Bella chuckled fondly. Bucky didn’t know what she was saying, but he was sure it wasn’t usually said in that tone of voice. He shifted on his feet as Bella unlocked the front door and pushed it open, the bell above it tinkling merrily as she did so, and he chucked his now-empty coffee cup away and followed her in.

There on the table, as always, was the little pile of loose pages. Bucky picked them up. Slipped the ribbon off, and started flicking through, scanning over the poems to decide which ones her was going to buy. The first one he chose because it was perfect. It was his mind laid out in ink and pen and a familiar feeling settled in his stomach, the same feeling he got every time he read one od Darcy’s poems that so perfectly expressed the feelings that he couldn’t express himself when explosions and bullets and an endless landscape of army fatigues smothered him.

> Sleepless
> 
> I dream pink and red carnations,  
>  Purple hyacinths and hydrangeas  
>  And forget-me-nots from eleven  
>  And wake at one to cry acid  
>  Then sleep again at three  
>  To wake at four to gasp poison gas  
>  And hunch rocking for two hundred and seventy degrees  
>  Until sleep captures an unwilling mind and struggling eyelids.   
>  The same eyes run and sting  
>  Through the day and ache to stay open  
>  And fight to understand a world blurred with tears and tiredness.   
>  Red laces white and draws attention  
>  But they duck and avert and watch the ground  
>  Beneath weary feet that stumble over  
>  The day’s difficulties and work and trials  
>  And all the while  
>  Night hangs over like a thundercloud  
>  A desperate need and desperate measure  
>  Resented and reviled and feared,  
>  Holding rest to ransom.   
>  At midnight I will succumb to exhaustion  
>  At two I will wake from free fall, falling   
>  Upwards and jerking upwards   
>  Sick and shaking and sweating.   
>  In the morning I will yawn through the day, falling  
>  Downwards and spiralling downwards  
>  And   
>  I   
>  Can’t   
>  Get  
>  Up.

The second poem, Bucky chooses is a pretty little poem that he likes just because.

> Little Hedgehog Blossom
> 
> Echinopsis lausser   
>  Is my favourite flower,  
>  One that bursts into life  
>  And shows nature’s power.   
>  Amidst a bed of needles  
>  And crumbling parched soil,  
>  A beautiful pink firework  
>  For most of the day coiled.   
>  Blossoming on a cactus  
>  In desert dry land,  
>  Wide and optimistic  
>  And as big as a hand.   
>  They bloom in adversity  
>  And bloom for a day  
>  But always return,  
>  They don’t stay away.   
>  So I’ll watch for my hedgehog  
>  To grow a pink smile  
>  And brighten my day  
>  By just looking a while.

Bella smiled at him as he dropped two quarters into the little charity bucket and he opened the door, then waved back once he’d stuck his foot in front to keep the door open. Then he ducked outside.

On his way out, he bumped into a bright, bubbly girl with an impressive chest, full lips stretched in a wide smile and sparkling blue eyes framed by hipster glasses and long, dark, wavy hair. She apologised, glanced at the top sheets of paper in his hand with a soft, almost surprised smile, and breezed into Bella’s shop without even the usual obligatory cursory glance at Bucky’s stump of a shoulder.

Bucky blinked. It had been almost a year now, a year since he was invalided home down an arm that he kinda needed and up a medal that he didn’t care about, a year since he had left his best friend out on the front line with a bunch of foolhardy kids and a prayer that he would come back home, and every person that met him in that year had at least glanced at the space where his left arm used to be, before studiously avoiding it. It was…refreshing, to not have someone treating it as a massive deal. Bucky realised that he was staring at her through the glass front of the shop, and shook himself before turning away and going home to pin his new poems to the wall of his shabby apartment with the rest of them.

The next week, Bucky stumbled down the stairs of his apartment block at eight o’clock, tugging on his jacket with his teeth and almost tripping down the steps. He nearly took a header down the last flight, but he managed to get his hand through the sleeve in time to grab at the rail and steady himself. He hurried out, shouted an apology to the man in the suit from one of the apartments on the ground floor whom he nearly bowled over, and ran to the bookshop. Bucky had to be there when Bella opens up so he can get first choice of Darcy’s poems.

Bella raised an eyebrow as Bucky jogged up to the store front at the same time as her.

“Sei in ritardo, soldato. You’re late.”

“I didn’t hear my alarm this morning.” Bucky didn’t mention that it was probably because he only got to sleep about ten minutes before it was set to go off at seven, but Bella could probably see the dark blue like bruises under his eyes.

She didn’t mention it however, and instead grinned with more amusement than usual as she let him in and he headed straight over to the table with the poems. Tacked onto the front with a paperclip just over an inch long, was a small square of white printer paper, different to the sheets with the poetry written on. Letters looped in blue ink: insta @darcywords xx. The two kisses were the only signature.

Bucky glanced over to Bella — she wasn’t looking, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she had been just moments before — then quickly and quietly detached the paperclip and message and slipped it into his pocket before starting to file through the new arrivals.

When Bucky got home, he checked how much money he had for the month. If he didn’t count the money he allocated to food and the money he needed for rent, he had enough spare change to pay for some time on the computers at the café opposite Subway. If he restricted himself, he had enough for an hour or so a week.

The café became Bucky’s second stop on Tuesday mornings. He would meet Bella to go in and choose a few poems to buy, then walk up the highstreet and sit in the café for half an hour. He made his own Instagram account (@onearmedbandit; Steve would laugh if he ever found out), and @darcywords was the first account he followed, and the only account he really cared about enough to check every week. She posted her favourites of the poems she had written, along with updates about her friend Janey who was autistic but a supergenius with science, and sometimes a cat or two would wander into the photo gallery (the soft, gingery-blonde one was called Thor, the black one was called Loki).

On a Monday evening after about a month of paying for a few hours of computer use here and there, Bucky pulled the sleek black box down from the one shelf in his whole apartment and stared at it. After what seemed like forever, he opened it and stared for another eternity at the medal sat unassumingly inside, nestled amongst black velvet like it hadn’t cost a literal arm and a leg (Dum Dum’s lost leg was a lot better than his lost life, which was why Bucky had the medal in the first place). After a hesitant touch of skin to medal and silk, Bucky pulled out his ancient phone that just about had camera and e-mail capabilities, he took a photo and e-mailed it to himself.

The next morning, he met Bella at the shop, bought a few poems, then stepped into the café and paid for time on one of the computers. He picked up the e-mail he sent to himself the night before and signed up for an eBay account.

_War medal presented to a Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes for saving the life of another soldier. Genuine. Bidding begins at:  $40._

There was a vague air of discomfort as Bucky clicked the link to upload the listing, but he forced himself to ignore it. He then uploaded the same photo to Instagram and captioned it with the link to the eBay listing and a quick explanation that he was saving for his own device (Bucky would take the cheapest from the choice of tablets, laptops or phones, so long as he could take it to the McDonald’s around the corner from his apartment for the free wifi). Then he logged off and left the café.

Bucky came back the next day and logged on, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. There was already an offer on his medal, from an L Foster, who said they would pay $100. They had tacked a link onto the message too, and Bucky clicked through to find an old Samsung Galaxy phone for just under a hundred dollars. He bit his lip and sent back an e-mail saying it’s really too much, but the person replied telling him to just send the fucking money so he can buy the fucking phone. Bucky swallowed his heart down from where it had lodged itself in his throat and finalised the arrangements of the sale.

When Bucky got his phone, he spent most of his time when he wasn’t working his pitiful minimum-wage job sat using the free wifi in McDonalds to go through Instagram. He was much more active on it now that his phone had a decent-quality camera. He also signed up for a tumblr account and followed Darcy on that, but he didn’t use it often as he didn’t really know how it worked. He posted some photos that he took on tumblr, and someone messaged him saying that one, he should sell his photographs, and two, her friend said he should post more pictures of himself because he’s pretty.

Bucky took a few minutes to process the message.

His photographs appeared in an online sale gallery a week later. The income from his pieces, along with the income from his actual job meant that he could actually start saving up properly, and he watched his growing bank account with a new, firm sense of pride and assurance. He had made this money, and it meant that he had enough to live on now, rather than merely survive.

Bucky’s photography got him noticed, and he was recruited for a fancy new job in a photography studio, which meant it was more difficult to talk properly with Bella. He just about had time to duck in on a Tuesday morning and quickly flick through to choose a couple of poems, dropping in a dollar now that he could spare it, and jog around the block to the studio.

Today, however, was a day off. Bucky still woke up at seven out of habit, and he was ready and out of the apartment complex in plenty of time to be waiting for Bella with a coffee to warm him up. Nearly six months had passed since the first time he found the little shop, and he was so glad that he had. Bella smiled warmly at him when she strolled up.

“Ciao, soldato, how are you?”

“Good, I have the day off today, and I was thinking I could just hang around here. I can help you out in the shop or whatever if you need me to.”

“Grazie, that would be very nice.”

Bucky dropped the dregs of his coffee in the trash and followed Bella inside. Of course, he had to buy his poems first, but then he tucked them behind the counter and stood to the side, ready to help Bella with anything.

By mid-morning, Bucky was established as the official go-fetch-er for whenever one of the customers didn’t know how to find something, although he was limited in the amount of books he could carry. He enjoyed himself, bustling around the stores as Bella captained ship from behind the till and the customers were extremely friendy. Most of them were regulars, and Bucky recognised a few of them. He definitely recognised the girl who walked in just before lunch time: long brown hair, hipster glasses, blues eyes and an impressive chest. And not a single glance at his shouler.

She evidently recognised him, too, as her face split into a grin.

“Hey soldier.” Bucky blinked, then gave Bella a suspicious look over his right shoulder. The lady smiled back at him sweetly and innocently. Bucky narrowed his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl glance at Bella, who shook her head almost imperceptibly with a gleam in her eye. Bucky looked back at the girl who grinned and stuck her hand out.

“Darcy Lewis, pleased to me you Sergeant James Barnes.”

Bucky stared. A few minutes passed before he realised his mouth was hanging open.

“Darcy as in darcywords? Like, with the poetry and the cats and the Janey and everything?”

“The Janey and everything,” the girl — Darcy — confirmed, beaming smugly. She waved her hand a bit, but Bucky was still too starstruck to recognise that he should shake it.

“Oh my god I think I love you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Bucky felt himself fluch from head to toe and he wished he could shove the sentence back into his mouth and swallow them down. Darcy, however, merely laughed and dropped her hand, apparently too amused by Bucky’s social incapability to keep up the attempt at formal introduction.

“Well, are you James Barnes as in onearmedbandit, with the photography and the army rank and the war wounds and everything?”

A vague part of Bucky felt like he should salute, but it seeme he had just enough control over himself to not do that.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.”

“Then I think I love you too.”

“Oh, uh, um,” Bucky stuttered. He could deal with bombs and bullets and death and pain, but apparently all his army training had not prepared him for pretty poets saying they liked him.

“Ask her to have some coffee!” Bella stage-whispered from her place at the till.

“Yeah, what Bella said. Do you want to get some coffee? With me?” Bucky managed to ask.

“Now? Sure. Give me a minute to grab a book and then we can go.”

Darcy bounced off towards a bookshelf in the corner and Bucky watched her go, slightly daze.

“Ehi, mio bambino, she’s a little hurricane, yes? Ai, miei bambini insieme.” Bella sighed in delight and put her chin in her hand, resting her elbow on the counter. Bucky chuckled and picked up te poems he had bought earlier in the morning, folding them and pocketing them before Darcy bounded back to pay for the book she had pulled straight off the shelf — evidently on she had been looking for rather than just browsing. Bella rang it through the till and handed it back in a bag and Darcy thanked her before moving to Bucky’s right to hook her hand through his arm as they left the shop.

They got coffee at a shop a little way away because Darcy said she knew the owner. She called hello to a ‘Clint’ as they walked in and a blonde man waved from behind the counter, then was immediately hit around the back of the head by a redhead who looked more than a little intimidating. The blonde rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and disappeared into a kitchen at the back. Darcy skipped up and was rewarded with a smile from the redhead.

“The usual, Darce?”

“Nope, remember we discussed Project Slot Machine?” Darcy wiggled her eyebrows energetically. Bucky fought the urge to take a step back as the redhead turned an appraising gaze onto him.

“Impressive? Full three cherries?”

“You bet.”

“Alright, and what does Mr Cherries want?” The woman looked at him and Bucky blinked. It took him just the wrong side of a moment to gather himself together and ask for a large black coffee. Once he ordered, Darcy beamed again. “Thanks, Tasha.”

Darcy and Bucky sat down at a table in the corner between the front window and a creamy yellow wall. Darcy cocked her head and watched him, then sighed.

“I have been waiting for so fucking long to actually talk to you properly.”

“What? No, I’ve been waiting for longer to meet Darcy who writes perfect poems and corrals two cats and a Janey.”

“Nope, pretty sure that was me, because I’ve been waiting since Bella told me a hot soldier with one arm was reading my poetry regularly.”

“Ah, well then I win, because I’ve been waiting since I read your first poem,” Bucky declared smugly. Darcy pursed her lips together and narrowed his eyes, but before she could say anything, the blonde man, Clint, set down a tall glass full of what appeared to be a complicated mess of some sort of hot brown liquid, strawberries, whipped cream, and god knew what else. Bucky was grateful when his drink was in a simple white mug and didn’t seem to have any unnecessary frills.

Darcy took a long sip of the mystery drink through the red and white striped straw, then smiled softly.

“You know half the poems I’ve written since Bella told me have been about you.”

Bucky flushed again. He told her that he thought her poems were beautiful, and took pleasure in the fact that it made her flush to match him. The couple behind the counter made a comment, but Bucky found he could ignore it as he watched Darcy give them the middle finger and continued talking with him about their respective arts.

Two weeks later, Darcy and Bucky were sat together in Bucky’s apartment. Darcy was curled into Bucky’s left side so he had his arm free for his drink as they watched The Godfather because Darcy had been scandalised that Bucky hadn’t seen it already. As the credits began to scroll up the screen, Darcy shifted and sat up, reaching down to the black shoulder-bag sat at the foot of Bucky’s dingy thriftshop sofa. Bucky set down his empty glass just as she pulled something out and held it behind her back.

“So, I wanted to give you something to celebrate two weeks together after twenty-five weeks missing each other at the shop.” It was easy to count by the number of deliveries of Darcy’s work there had been, by the number of poems Bucky had pinned to the wall that had made Darcy squeal and throw herself on him. “It’s really special to me because it reminds me of a really special person, but I want you to have it.”

She handed Bucky a smallish box wrapped neatly. Bucky recoiled.

“I couldn’t take something that precious from you! We hardly really know each other!”

Darcy grinned and held the box on one palm, then took Bucky’s hand and made him rip the first bit of paper.

“There, see. You’ve already started opening it. Now you have to keep it.” Darcy beamed triumphantly and Bucky stared at her in wonder before giving in and unwrapping the rest. His breath caught as a very familiar black box slid out of the paper, and with a shaking hand, he reached out and slowly tipped the lid off.

Inside, sat unassumingly like it hadn’t cost and arm and a leg twice (once literally and once metaphorically), was a war medal presented to a Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes for saving the life of another soldier. Genuine. Bucky looked up at Darcy, who was beaming at him, and breathed out in awe and wonder and a thanks so huge he could never voice it, so he just said:

“I love you.”

Darcy kissed him sweet and long.

All of her poems that week were happy, and most of them were about love and war and brown hair and green eyes.

Bucky pinned them to his wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally managed to get this finished! I had all of the first part up to the date, then I had the part with the medal at the end, but I just couldn't make them join up! However, I finally managed it, and so you have another update :D
> 
> Links to poems:  
> http://c-p-m-b.tumblr.com/post/144642555160/sleepless  
> http://c-p-m-b.tumblr.com/post/143206162082/little-hedgehog-blossom


	4. Darcy Lewis Protection Squad (Darcy/Bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy struggles to cope with the aftermath of the civil war between the Avengers, and some things are harder than others.
> 
> Or: What Tony Is Willing to Do for Cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-divergence regarding the prior existence of the relationship, but set after Captain America: Civil War

If Darcy closes her eyes, she can see him still — slumped over the kitchen island nursing a coffee. In her mind, he’s still got the silver arm. In her mind, he’s still here, instead of in Wakanda imitating Fry from Futurama. When she bakes, she can hear him still — grouching about his last mission, or at Steve’s overprotectiveness, or at Tony’s latest Barnes-Baiting exploits. She doesn’t bake a lot anymore. It feels wrong. When they finally return to the compound, after a couple of months in Wakanda until everything has dies down (amongst their teammates and amongst the countries of the world) Tony complains about the lack of baked goods, but Jane quells him with a withering look that Natasha would have been proud of. A look that Natasha _had_ been proud of.

Natasha makes it her mission to look after Darcy these days, but Jane has always been Darcy’s protector, just as Darcy had been hers. Darcy discovers this just means she now has a team of pseudo-bodyguards because Wanda is always up for girls’ nights and girl talk and Pepper, surprisingly, is on Darcy’s side and she updates Darcy regularly if there’s anything unusual in Tony’s schedule so that Darcy can avoid him if she wants to.

She usually wants to.

She’s not a fan of the rest of the team, but she can deal with them. Mostly Natasha, because Natasha was firmly in Darcy’s corner. She feels bad for Rhodey, and she wants to talk to Vision because she misses J.A.R.V.I.S., and she hasn’t seen Spiderman because Tony, in a socking display of decency, has kept his identity a secret and not tried to drag him into the Avengers’ crazy home lives. So it’s really just Tony that Darcy is actively avoiding. Pepper helps all she can, but Darcy has still developed a habit of ducking behind the nearest obstacle whenever she sees him, be that obstacle a wall, a lab machine or a person. Steve is particularly helpful in this aspect. He’s added to the Darcy Lewis Protection Squad when he pushes Darcy back around a corner without warning and she hears him divert Tony back the way he came, and Natasha gets him a t-shirt, because she’s had t-shirts made for all the girls (Darcy’s one says ‘I am Darcy Lewis’ just in case anyone was in any doubt about whom the ‘squad’ is protecting).

Natasha ends up getting t-shirts for most of the people in the compound. Darcy loses track of how many time she walks into the labs — because the labs are now separate to Tony’s workshop, just another reasons Darcy loves both Natasha and Pepper — and sees at least five of the Science!Minions wearing light grey t-shirts with ‘Darcy Lewis Protection Squad’ emblazoned across them. When Darcy opens her drawer and finds seven t-shirts in different colours, a t-shirt declaring her identity for every day of the week, she gives up and starts wearing them to work.

Darcy discovers some days are worse than others. Some days Darcy doesn’t cy at all; some days it’s all she does. Those days are the worst, days when she can’t even leave her bed because even though she knows he’s not, it feels like Bucky’s dead. Dropping temperatures and the oncoming winter make the bad days more frequent, because the cold makes her think of him all the time.

It takes two months for her to work up the courage to go down to his floor. Jane comes with her, and she knows that Natasha is somewhere close, even if she can’t see her.

He looks like he’s sleeping. The case is tilted backwards slightly, and there are wide black straps pulled across his body. Darcy reaches out and traces the glass above the space where his silver arm should be. The lack of it, it’s glaring absence, makes her heart constrict, and suddenly she’s sobbing. The glass is cool under her forehead, her knees hurt where they hit the floor, and her tear splatter on the glass as they roll off her face. Jane’s arm is around her shoulders, as well as another arm; Natasha’s. Darcy wishes with all her heart that he will just stand up and pull her up into a hug, just like he did every time he came home from a mission, just like he did every time Darcy was worried about him.

Darcy cries like that for an hour. Eventually the sobs recede and she sits back onto her heels to look up at him sealed away inside a glass case, frozen in time. She reaches up to press a hand against the glass, and the movement shucks the two arms that had stayed wrapped around her shoulder. Footsteps move off and a door shuts, and Darcy opens her mouth and starts speaking.

She begins to go down to see Bucky once a week to talk to him, to keep him updated, even if he can’t hear her. It helps because he was the only one she could ever be really honest with, and it’s been killing her to have everything sitting in her chest, such as how she doesn’t want to be here most of the time, how she doesn’t like anyone here most of the time, how she wishes she never took the internship with Jane in the first place. Then she cries because if she never met the Avengers, she would never have met him and it feels like a betrayal to wish for a backtrack.

Sometimes she has good days, when she can acknowledge the pain of missing him without letting it take over. Those are the days when she pulls on whatever clean ‘I am Darcy Lewis’ t-shirt she has lying around and descends to the labs so she could make sure that no-one has died while Jack Phills has been in charge. Jack Phills is a good Science!Wrangler-in-training, but Darcy still feels guilty that he has two Science!People and a whole floor of Science!Minions dumped on him whenever she can’t drag herself out of her rooms. Jack reassures her every time, and they work together to get everyone fed and rested. Darcy trains him up some more, and rewards him with store-bought cupcakes and promises of homemade versions when she can.

On the good days, Natasha teaches Darcy to fight, Pepper takes Darcy along to meetings because the board are inexplicably terrified of Darcy, Wanda does girl chats and movie dates and Jane takes a break from Science!ing to go and get coffee and chat in a place that isn’t the Avengers’ Compound, which often feels surprisingly claustrophobic for approximately fifteen acres of space.

On the good days, Darcy talks to people.

On the bad days, Darcy cries in her bed and refuses to talk to even Jane. F.R.I.D.A.Y. becomes her only companion, becomes a Darcy!Wrangler, forcing her to get up and good food, and getting others to bring her food when she refuses to move. A robot turns up at some point and lurks in the corner of Darcy’s room, activated by F.R.I.D.A.Y. whenever Darcy’s getting particularly bad to get food and water and prod her into doing something other than curl up and cry.

It gets better. The bad days grow fewer and the good days become more frequent. Darcy talks to Bucky every day, and the ache in her chest is less painful every time he doesn’t respond.

Darcy also notices that Tony is less obnoxious — which is helped by the scarcity of sightings — and the one time he seeks her out is to apologise. It’s a good day, so Darcy doesn’t shriek and run away and/or use her taser, and Tony is surprisingly genuine. She lets him briefly explain what happened, and then lets him leave without injury. She forces herself to consider the situation from his perspective, and makes herself promise to give him a chance from now on.

She starts seeing him around the common areas and not immediately hiding. The first time Natasha realises that Tony is starting to be around Darcy more, all four of the girls turn up to the common room wearing their Darcy Lewis Protection Squad t-shirts, and Tony startles and grabs his coffee suspiciously. Darcy has to intervene and explain to them that he’s apologised, then she goes down to tell Bucky.

The machines in the room have moved slightly, and Darcy frowns, but there’s no one she can tell. She swallows and takes her usual seat on the floor to talk to the glass case.

Natasha collects her later for sparring and Darcy forgets about the shifted equipment because Natasha leaves bruises the size of mainland Europe and cognitive recalibration takes surprisingly little force. A throbbing temple just makes Darcy want to curl up in a ball, so she does. She drags Jane up from the labs and they change into their fluffiest pyjamas and nest on the floor of Darcy’s bedroom in a pile of pillows and blankets. F.R.I.D.A.Y. dims the lights and it’s like New Mexico again, before they got the apartment, when they shared a bed in the trailer and Jane would mumble in Science! and Darcy would sing unconventional lullabies written by Seafret or Cobra Starship.

Darcy wakes up on a bad day. The first indicator of this is that her throat is raw, her eyes are stinging and her face is sticky, and it’s three in the morning. Jane is shaking her awake, which is another bad sign, and then it gets worse because it’s Bucky shaking her awake, or Darcy shaking Bucky awake, and they’re both leaning into each other and depending on each other and then he’s not there again and Darcy starts crying again. Jane disappears into Darcy’s kitchen and returns with two mugs of hot chocolate complete with all the trimmings. Darcy shuffles into the warmth of her friend and wraps her hands around the warmth of the ceramic mug, but it still feels wrong, because he should be here to wipe the whipped cream off her nose when she inevitably almost dunks her face in the frothy white cream.

Somehow, Darcy sleeps again, and wakes up at the more respectable time of seven in the morning. Jane is down in the labs by that time, and so it’s the little robot (whom Darcy has affectionately named S.A.R.A.H., which stands for Small Ally: Reliable And Helpful. Admittedly she’s not as good at naming bots as Tony, but she thinks there’s potential there somewhere) who brings her a plate of buttered toast. Darcy thanks her and struggles through it because her throat doesn’t want food at this particular point in time, even though she’s starving.

Darcy finishes the breakfast and lies there for a while, gathering energy and effort to ask S.A.R.A.H. to help her up out of bed. Once she’s up, she can get herself sorted. It’s the getting up that’s hard.

It takes her half an hour to get changed from fluffy pyjamas into jeans and a Darcy Lewis top, and S.A.R.A.H. beeps sadly as Darcy steps into the elevator because for some reason she stays on Darcy’s floor at all times and can’t follow her down to help. Darcy just leans on the rail running around the walls of the elevator and promises herself a whole hour with Bucky.

When she gets to his floor however, the glass cryo case stands empty.

Darcy’s vision goes white-red and red-black and she’s shaking and floating and spinning all at once and then she’s in the elevator again and storming or maybe stumbling out into the common room demanding or maybe pleading to know where he’s gone. Natasha’s there immediately barking orders and getting Darcy laid out on the couch before disappearing, presumably to find out what the fuck is going on.

Someone hands Darcy a glass of what looks like water, but tastes bitter, only Darcy can’t do anything about it because she’s already slipping into the cool and welcoming dark hands of sleep.

Darcy wakes up with her head in someone’s lap. It’s a male’s lap, and it feels sickeningly familiar. Darcy looks up into soft, careworn eyes hidden under long brown hair and sighs. A few tears leak her eyes and she closes them again because it hurts to see a mockery of everything she ever loved.

The lap underneath her shifts, and Darcy’s eyes fly back open. There’s concern in the blue eyes, and the lines around the mouth a intimately familiar. Darcy suddenly has enough strength to scramble up into a sitting position and her hands fly out to feel soft, familiar skin underneath them. Darcy stares at Bucky for a few moments in disbelief, then throws herself onto him.

The kiss tastes like coming home.

When Darcy pulls away, she settles herself into his side, under his arm, then looks around. The team is all sat around watching in various degrees of emotion.

“I don’t understand,” Darcy says to no one in particular.

“I, uh, I worked out some figures.”

Darcy stares at Tony. So does the rest of the team. Natasha is the only one who doesn’t look surprised, which isn’t surprising.

“Why would you do that? I thought you didn’t like either of us.”

Tony shuffled. He has always been uncomfortable with the idea of selflessness, even though it was probably one of his best traits. He shrugged it off and did what he usually did: pretending it was for selfish motives.

“I wanted cookies, and it looked like the fastest way to get them was to get Barnes back.” Darcy threw herself onto Tony, who exhaled sharply and stumbled backwards. “Woah, Lewis, you’ve already got a boyfriend.”

Darcy breathes a thank you into Tony’s neck, then retreats to the aforementioned boyfriend because she has to make sure he’s still there. Has to make sure he’s still here with her.

* * *

 Bucky joins Darcy in her rooms again in the evening. Darcy waits until he’s asleep, then turns to S.A.R.A.H.. The little robot rolls over with an enquiring beep.

“You’d tell me if I was going mad, wouldn’t you?”

S.A.R.A.H. makes the strange clattering sound that means yes and Darcy pats the little camera head fondly. As S.A.R.A.H. retreats to her corner, Darcy turns over onto her other side and watches the familiar planes of Bucky’s sleeping face until they burn themselves into her dreams.

 

In the corner, S.A.R.A.H. creaks happily and F.R.I.D.A.Y. orders ingredients for cookies.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another WinterShock. So kill me.  
> Anyone I'm not sure about this one because I wrote loosely from personal experience with anxiety and depression to show Darcy's struggles with grief so I'm not sure whether she's a bit OoC, sorry if she is.
> 
> Also, if you haven't already, go check out my story Terms and Conditions, which is based on 'There Are Worse People to be Soulbonded To' and is a list of Darcy's rules for the labs. It's cool. Other Affiliated Stories will be coming soon and added to the series so check them out too x


	5. Darcy and Deities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has enough problems to deal with without being roped into the Avengers and yet here she is.  
> Or: Darcy knows far too many gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crossover fic

There is really no need for any more complications, what with Manhattan, then San Francisco and then Brooklyn, she doesn’t need another in New Mexico. New Mexico is supposed to be her escape from all that stuff. But no, it’s a Norse one this time, and Darcy rolls her eyes and makes a mental note to send a strongly worded letter to the nearest Chase.

Jane hits him with the van and Darcy tasers him because it’s amazing the technology they have now for electricity based protection. The guy turns out to be Thor, and Darcy warms up to him quickly as a result, and also because he seems so willing to do most things, like smile on command even though he’s never heard of a camera, and because he’s overly excitable and smashes the first mug, which makes Eric sigh and Jane panic.

Then the robot of fire and doom comes along, as well as Loki, and Darcy rages internally but allows Jane to drag her out of the way and watches as Thor defends the tiny little town in the middle of nowhere even though he’s only been there for like two days. (Although it is his fault the death-bot is here anyway so he should be the one to deal with it). Darcy twists the bracelet on her wrist compulsively, and her hand keeps fluttering reassuringly to the charm on her necklace.

Then London happens—Darcy doesn’t even know, except that she is _definitely_ writing that letter to a Chase right as soon as she gets back to America because screw this.

(Jane gets to go back to the USA first, because now it’s Leonid that’s in trouble so Darcy gets stuck in St. Petersburg for far too long and she is not down for any of this, she needs to find friends who can deal with this themselves.)

In the end, she does, only they end up being the Avengers, which only attracts trouble instead of leaving her out of it, and when Hit-zil-pot-lee or whatever his name is turns up, Darcy has had enough.

She throws years of working carefully to conceal her identity in approximately five seconds by just screaming and leaving a smoking circle of ash where it had been standing (she’s not stupid, she knows it’s not dead, but she can dream).

Everyone looks to Thor to try and work out when he had raised Mew mew to call down the lightening, and that would be the easy option, but Darcy had never been one for the easy option, and so everything comes tumbling out. It takes a while for them to get their heads around the fact that she’s the daughter of Zeus—yes the actual Zeus that the Greeks built temples for and burnt perfectly good food for, the same Zeus that lived on the actual Mount Olympus, only now Mount Olympus is suspended over the Empire State Building—but once that’s out of the way, they just sort of accept the Roman gods being a thing too, as well as the Egyptian ones, and Thor is pretty good proof of Norse mythology actually existing so there’s that.

Thor nods, Steve stares off into the distance (something he started doing roughly around the time Darcy mentioned the twenty-first nome was in Brooklyn), Tony is talking at a million miles per hour as usual, Natasha and Clint are both doing the sneaky-spy-stare they’ve probably patented at this point, and Jane and Bruce are looking at her like she’s a science thesis. Darcy yawns, tells them Hoot-sil-op-chee isn’t dead, then says she’s going to bed. She ignores it when they start shouting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the bad guy they fight at the end is the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli but I felt that with Darcy’s record with names like Mjolnr, this was more her style]
> 
> Yeah so this was just a little drabble thing that I came up with because I saw someone do a fic where Darcy was a demi-god and I liked the idea but not the style so I made my own. Nothing is copied from the source except the idea of her being a demi-god.
> 
> Also go check out 'What Tony is Willing to Do for Cookies' for an alternative POV for the last fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7338907


	6. GIRLFRIEND (Darcy/Natasha)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is assigned care of Darcy Lewis, and she can't possibly be as bad as they say she is, can she?
> 
> Or: Darcy is worse than anyone ever believes.

Since Russia, one person had managed to slip past and confuse Natasha Romanoff. Before Natasha properly knew them, she stubbornly insisted to herself and Clint Barton that it was because of inaccurate and inadequate information provided on the subject, but after approximately two weeks of knowing them, she had to concede to Clint’s amused persistence that nope they were just that sort of person.

They were, of course, Darcy Lewis.

When Clint came back from New Mexico talking about a crazy poli-sci major who had tased a god, Natasha laughed and told him there was no way he’d had the hard job when she’d been babysitting Tony Stark for her assignment. Clint smirked and the next time Coulson was in the same room as both of them, he asked him what he thought of Darcy Lewis.

Coulson’s eye twitched.

Natasha saw this reaction because she saw everything, but still she was sceptical. How could a music-loving intern possibly cause much trouble? She mentioned that to Coulson and the fact that she almost saw a smile made her frown.

Coulson knew how to drag things out and wait for revenge. Nearly eight months after the Stark fiasco, a Dr. Foster and her assistant were invited to live at Avengers Tower. Coulson assigned Natasha, as a fellow resident of the tower, to look after and show around the assistant (Thor would take care of Dr. Foster, apparently there was something going on there). Natasha agreed readily enough, provided the assistant wasn’t too scared of her. Coulson laughed and assured Natasha that they wouldn’t be. When Natasha told Clint, he started laughing but wouldn’t explain why, and so it wasn’t until the day they moved in that Natasha found out exactly why they both found it so amusing.

“Hi, I’m Darcy Lewis, nice to meet you. Are you Natasha, I mean Black Widow? You’re so cool! You’re my favourite (except for Thor, obviously, but Thor is like a really over-protective and slightly intimidating brother). Clint told me loads about you and Agent says you’re one of the best. Do you know where the labs are, by the way? Jane got here a couple of hours ago because she travelled by Thor so she’s probably Science!ing already.”

Natasha stared at the girl. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Clint laughing, but Darcy just grinned at her with wide and innocent eyes and waited expectantly for Natasha to show her the way.

So Natasha re-evaluated her opinions. She mentally adjusted the description next to Darcy’s name in her head to label her as an over-eager and over excited best friend.

Natasha kept her position as ‘the assistant’s assistant’ because she had never given up on an assignment, and she refused to be bested by a twenty-something-year-old college grad. She also refused to admit that Darcy was running rings around her, and ignored the laughter following her from Clint and the vaguely amused looks from Coulson.

 

“So what do you do to relax then,” Darcy asked when Natasha finally found her after three hours of the girl being M.I.A. “Or is it constant death glares and knife throwing. Oh, do you do recreational knife throwing, you know like they do in the circus?”

Natasha blinked a few times. She tended to do that a lot around Darcy. It bought her time to process whatever Darcy had spouted and try to formulate a response.

“I like watching documentaries.”

“Oh my god, me too! David Attenborough is so cool, honestly, screw Morgan Freeman, I want my life to be narrated by David Attenborough.”

“The wild Darcy stuns her prey with obscure meme references, subduing it until she can attack.” Natasha glared at Clint in the doorway. He ignored her with a wide grin and swung into the room. “The prey, unaware that it is any lower than the top of the food chain, plans its attack on its own prey, unaware that even now it is falling into the wild Darcy’s trap.”

“Your English accent is shit, tweety-pie,” Darcy said with great decorum, before bombarding Natasha with her opinions on various documentaries. When Clint sat down, Darcy flopped backwards onto him so her head was in his lap, but her hand caught Natasha’s. Natasha made a barely-exasperated sound and closed her eyes as Clint and Darcy started to bicker.

Natasha updated Darcy’s info in her head to label her as a sarcastic, intelligent, possible Hawk girlfriend.

Natasha continued attempting to work with Darcy, despite the fact that Clint was obviously working against her, because she would not be beaten by a just-about-not-intern. She also continued attempting to keep up with Darcy, despite the fact that she was quickly falling behind.

 

“What do you want for dinner?” Darcy asked too brightly and too loudly. Natasha didn’t answer; she was too busy staring at the screen behind the girl. Darcy was too slim to hide the whole monitor, and Natasha was pretty sure she could see S.H.I.E.L.D. files on the screen. Darcy shifted slightly and beamed at Natasha, but there was guilt in her eyes.

“Darcy, you don’t have anything to do with dinner in the tower if anyone wants to live for a few more years without being poisoned. What are you doing on the computer?”

“Um, research? For Jane?”

“Darcy.”

“Nothing that would lead to the death penalty,” Darcy said. Natasha frowned and strode forward to see the screen, but before she got too close, the screen went dark.

“Darcy, you need to not be doing illegal things.”

“Why? Half the other people in this tower do it on a regular basis.”

Natasha glared at her few as long as she could, but after a few moments, she felt her gaze crack and Darcy lunged forward to grab her in a hug.

“You’re my favourite, bestest superhero ever. Love you!”

Natasha watched her go and wondered what the fuzz in her chest was.

Two days later, Natasha found Darcy hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. servers again. Darcy jumped when Natasha laid a hand on her shoulder, and the screen flashed. Suddenly it was filled with lines and lines of writing. It was still S.H.I.E.L.D. files, but Natasha was sure her photo had been on the page before.

“Darcy….” Darcy looked up at Natasha with big eyes and Natasha sighed. “If you get caught, I did not have any involvement in this.”

Darcy’s label in Natasha’s head changed to secret millennial hacker with strange manipulation powers.

Natasha continued to tag around with Darcy because- because- because she liked it.

 

“Ready!” Darcy declared as she appeared in the kitchen decked out in pink, purple and blue. Clint beamed, then turned his head to stare at Natasha before ripping off his shirt like he was Superman. Gay superman. Underneath his shirt, he had on what looked to be some sort of rainbow gimp suit without the head and in his hand he brandished a rainbow wizard hat which he flung like a Frisbee and somehow managed to get to land on Natasha’s head. Natasha blinked a few times.

“Ready for what?”

“Pride,” Darcy said, like it was obvious, and maybe it should have been. Clint glanced between the two of them and grinned wickedly.

“I’ll wait outside.”

Darcy looked at Natasha and shrugged.

“I thought you were straight, then I checked, then I thought I was being too subtle, so I asked Clint to help.”

Natasha buried her head in her hands to hide the grin that was spreading over her face.

“That was the absolutely worst thing to do. God, why does everyone go to Clint for help? We all know it usually ends in disaster.”

“But not this time?” Natasha looked up to find Darcy inches away from her. “Can I?”

“Of course, you walking security risk.”

The kiss tasted strangely like computer wiring.

 

If Natasha’s brain were a computer, Darcy’s photo would have been badly photoshopped with little hearts and stars. Her description would have had one word, but it would all be in capital letters because there was one person who had slipped past Natasha’s walls: GIRLFRIEND.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's kinda shit, I'm sorry. I just wanted to get it up because I feel like I haven't updated this for ages and I wanted to give you guys something. I've had bad writer's block and a good summer holiday so that's my excuse. I'm sorry!


	7. Daria, Daughter of Russia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy Lewis is Daria Levin and she doesn't always understand why or how.
> 
> Or: Mother Russia is an abusive parent but her children love each other

She only remembers some of it occasionally. She remembers far more years than is reasonable for anyone, let alone a girl who's supposed to be twenty-five. She remembers writing her own files, filling out her own diploma for a course she never took but knew inside and out, writing her own birth certificate and filling in the details of her own parents. She remembers blood, pain, bone-deep fatigue, and strains of beautiful music tainted by evil. She remembers a flash of fiery hair, and a spark of silver, and a terrifying rushing as she tumbled from somewhere high and landed running. 

She remembers her real name. Daria. Дарья. Daria Levin. Дарья Левин. She remembers deciding it wouldn't fit in the way she wanted to and searching through the caverns of a memory too expansive for her body to find a name from a couple of books she had read in the English language once. Darcy Lewis found an internship with a Doctor Jane Foster because somewhere, somehow she had been trained in sciences, and an internship meant less paperwork. 

She had enough money, anyway. 

So Darcy starts to work with Jane and starts to like Jane and the old garage in the middle of the desert starts to feel much more like home than the constant snowstorm several seas away ever did.  

When Thor lands, Daria reacts instinctively, attacking with the taser she had taken to carrying because it required less official files than a gun (although she still had a gun that she had always had for as long as she could remember stashed in the emergency bag at the bottom of her wardrobe). Jane doesn't seem to find it too strange and they drag him to the hospital.  

When S.H.I.E.L.D. turns up, Darcy panics. The agents, however, don't remember her like she remembers them and Darcy pretends her concern is only for her iPod. She knows the tall one. Behind her eyelids she sees him and another man and a woman by her side with red hair. Nevertheless, he doesn't remember her, and she keeps her muddled secret as Thor and the other Asgardians fight the doombot and she gets as many living creatures out of the danger zone as she can. 

A voice in her head that isn't her own berates her, tells her to get out while she can, casualties are expected and a necessary consequence of war.  

They move to England and there's a brief clip of the news from the country they have just come from, and two of the people fighting the hoard of aliens in the middle of Manhattan make Daria rock back in shock. Then the image cuts out and three weeks later they're fighting more of their own aliens with Thor who's back from Asgard or Manhattan or wherever he has been whilst Jane's been pining for him. 

Jane moves back to New York on the off chance that Thor turns up again later so she can be closer to where he's most likely to touchdown whenever he comes to visit, and of course Darcy follows. She goes to visit the building in the middle of the city that definitely-isn't-compensating-for-anything-promise and there are people in the lobby with uniforms that make her body lurch and voices in her head that definitely aren't hers argue with each other about whether to kill them all or escape while she still can.  

Her fingers are on the knife in her belt before Jane drags her to see a street performer in the park.  

Daria should have moved quicker.  

Darcy feels sick.  

Jane doesn't notice anything is wrong because how could she when Daria had been conditioned all her life to live a lie? Daria had successfully conned lie detector tests before (she doesn't remember why or where or when, only that it was before the date currently listed on her birth certificate).  

Tony Stark’s P.A. gets a hold of Jane’s number and now Darcy’s job description includes fielding off phone calls from S.I. because ‘I refuse to sell out, Darcy. My babies have lived on duct tape all their lives and there's no reason they can't continue to do so’. Jane seems inordinately proud of her DIY equipment but Daria imagines a half-memory of pride in a similarly impromptu creation. She ignores the fact that it was probably put to more questionably moral use and continues to help Jane because Jane is a good person and maybe she can help Daria become more like Darcy.  

Something happens in Washington D.C. involving Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. and even though Daria’s still wary of the organisation, she gasps along with the rest of the country as they watch the epic battle roll across news screens and roots for the right guy.  

Until she sees half a glimpse of silver and red and black and her gaze inverts. When Darcy blinks, she's glad Jane had run to the shops to buy new whiteboard markers because there's a knife in her hand and she's crouched in a fighting stance that doesn't hurt the way it should if she wasn't used to it. When the camera finds Captain America sprawled on the bank of the Potomac river, Daria sees the boot print and knows it like she knows a dream but she can't remember exactly. She just knows the details count and this detail has counted far more and far longer than most. It aches like the loss of a family member which feels odd because Daria had neither family members nor emotions and Darcy doesn't know what to do. When Jane comes in she tells her that they thought Captain America was dead but someone saved him.  

It echoes far too familiarly around her head.  

Darcy forces it out of her immediate thoughts and succeeds at appearing as a normal human for a couple off months.  

The breaking point is when Jane finally caves to Ms. Virginia Potts and is offered a job on the Avengers Tower premises with the option of residence. Jane negotiates and says that both she and Darcy will work there for a month before deciding if they both want to stay. Two days later Ms. Potts notifies them that she had informed Mr. Stark and would like to meet them both and then they can cart in all of their equipment.  

Tony Stark decides the very next day is the perfect opportunity to meet and invites the two women up to his office and workshop. Darcy wonders why he calls it a workshop rather than a lab until she walks into it. She knows laboratories. The knowledge of them is cut deep and painful into her bones. She knows the sleek edges and safety measures and experiments. She also knows Jane’s lab, which is its own brand of special, just like its accompanying scientist. Tony Stark’s workspace is nothing like either of them. Workshop is probably the best word for it. Jane is oblivious, already talking science with Tony, happily agreeing to the residences provided for both herself and for Darcy in the midst of her excited explanation of how to efficiently use her duct-tape-toys. Darcy is only mildly put off by the sudden announcement that they'll move in tomorrow morning. Daria is ready to move at any time and can prepare herself to move in within the hour. Jane and her machines, however, will require a bit more than that. Nevertheless, she doesn't object.  

Tony continues showing the two women around and mostly ignoring Darcy in favour of the boss (Darcy doesn't mind, her job is just to look out for Jane, not to get involved in the science) except after the best part of two hours.  

“Darcy Lewis, right? With Foster? Nice. You can share a floor with her.” 

Darcy watches him. Then she shrugs. A grin splits over his face and he cheers and though Darcy is a little confused by his reaction, she listens, pleased, as he tells an invisible voice in the wires that she's his favourite. Somewhere in Daria’s mind the A.I. conjures up an image of another man in the computer. A real man too scared to use his own draught of immortality and instead sealed his life in new technology that has long since been outstripped.  

Someone knocks on the door and Tony opens it and steps out. Before the door pulls to, however, Daria’s gaze locks with a pair of agonisingly familiar eyes. All of a sudden Ms. ‘Call-me-Pepper’ Potts is with them to escort them out another door and Daria is left with too many years of memories swirling vaguely in her head like a blizzard. They leave for the night and say brief goodbyes. They'll return in the morning.  

Daria has never needed sleep, so she uses the night to force Jane to rest and ready the machines for transportation herself. She then packs her rucksack and grabs the duffel from the bottom of the wardrobe. All Daria owns fits in the two bags. Jane wakes up in time to have a proper breakfast before the truck arrives and is lucid enough after two mugs of coffee to help Darcy load all the equipment into the back of the moving van that Stark had provided.  

They go in through the lobby of Stark Tower this time, rather than the Stark Industries entrance, and the uniforms still make Daria bristle, but know she lives among them. She has to remind herself they are not enemies and can't remember why she thinks they are.  

Jane goes straight to the lab Tony had informed her that she was the proud new owner of, Darcy heads for their residential floor. O 

That's where Tony ambushes her.  

“You. What did you do to the spyssassin twins? Birdbrain looks almost terrified and Black Widow has compl- are you okay? Lewis? J., get someone in here. Now!” 

Daria’s chest is shutting down. She can't see the room which means she can't see threats so she needs to be armed. Her knife is in her belt. Now it's in her hand. She can here vague noises filtering through code in her head.  

“Shit, Lewis, where the fuck did you get that knife? J., is anyone coming? Get Cap, or Falcon. Also Pepper and Jane. They're buddies with Lewis, right?” 

Daria pads softly in a circle, following the voice as it paces around the room. A door opens and she feels the air shift and the presence of more people. Two. She blinks and her vision clears slightly. She can see three males in the room. None of them look like her target. She doesn't attack. The blonde one watches her with something in his head and then shock, horror and faint recognition bloom in his pupils.  

“Stand down.” 

Daria relaxes. She secretes the knife. She blinks. Darcy’s eyes fly wide open in fear.  

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Извините. I'm sorry. Извините.” 

Steve Rogers catches Darcy under an arm and helps guide her along to a seat. It's at their new dinner table. Darcy has to remind herself of that because she has to remind herself that this is home now.  

“What did you do?” Sam is soft and gentle, kneeling on the floor at Darcy’s side. He looks up at Steve as he asks the question and the other man grimaces.  

“I broke the programming.” 

“Programming?” Stark is a much more obnoxious presence as he stands by the table, looming over them all.  

“It was like- like with Bucky. Her eyes had the same look. What happened?” 

“I asked her what she did to the crazy twins. I said Barton looked scared and Natasha look upset.” 

Daria knows the name. She knows it in her heart and in her mind and in every fibre of her being. This isn't a half-remembered dream, this is a bright flare of hope.  

“Natasha? Natalia? Natalia Romanov?” The three men stare at her but Daria’s chest is tight again for a completely different reason. “Please let me see her. I have to see her!” 

Steve still stares, but something connects behind his eyes and he tells Tony to go and get Natasha and bring her to one of the private offices upstairs. He and Sam escort Daria up there themselves.  

The room is small, barely enough room for a desk and the usual arrangement of three chairs, bland flatpack furniture in a bland grey room. Darcy traces the patterns on the dingy brown carpet as Steve and Sam disappear. This is a private space.  

When the door opens, red and black rushes towards her and grabs her upper arms to stare into her face. Daria nearly cries with relief and happiness.  

"Dasha? Дашка, is it you?” Her voice is the same as it ever was.  

“Natashka! Ната, you’re alive! And you're free! How did you get out? I thought Lukin said the Widow would be their servant and Stark said-“ 

Natasha wraps Daria in warm arms that Darcy definitely remembers and presses pleasantly familiar kisses to her hair. At some point she becomes aware that she's crying and the voice that isn't hers in her head begins berating the lack of attention but then Natalia squeezes tighter and it dies off.  

“Yes. I'm the Black Widow. I did so many bad things, Даша, I killed so many people. How much do you remember? Do you remember just before you disappeared, just before you left, we had to track an American sniper? Just an intel mission.” 

“Hawkeye-“ Daria gasps. That’s why Clint Barton looks so familiar. Now that the memory has been jogged, she realises she recognised the tall Agent from New Mexico from the same mission. The target—Clint—had referred to him as a ‘handler’. Darcy felt movement above her head as Natasha nodded.  

“After you left, Lukin blamed S.H.I.E.L.D. and since the last contact with them had been on that mission, he ordered me to take out Agent Barton. Agent Barton was given the same orders referring to me. He recruited me instead.” Still neither woman relinquished their grip on each other. “How did you get out, Дашка?” 

“James saved me. I can't remember how, my brain won't work properly when I try to think of that night, all remember is planning some sort of escape and him pushing me out of a window so I could run.” There's a long silence. “He wanted to save you, too. I know he did.” 

“You were his Дашенька.” 

“You were his best friend. Or as close as he was ever allowed.” 

There's a pause that stretches out.  

“They call him the Winter Soldier now, not just the Soldier or the Asset. His full name was James Buchanan Barnes and he was Captain America’s best friend. And I saw him a few weeks ago.” 

Daria reels from the information. She remembers James’ determined claiming of his American name and the frustration of not remembering the rest and then she remembers reading up on the American version of Captain America rather than the the propaganda they had fed to her during the war and reading about Bucky Barnes.  

She remembers what she saw on the news.  

“Did you see him in the capital?” 

“Yes.” Natasha’s tone is a mixture of surprised and proud and something warm sits in Daria’s stomach when she finds a whole chain of similar memories.  

“I thought I saw his arm on the news. Only I couldn't remember what it was. Like when I saw you and Hawkeye on TV during the Battle of New York.” 

Natalia nods.  

“I feel like that still sometimes.” 

Daria doesn't want to leave. She wants to stay in the tiny, cramped, ugly office with her Наташка forever. When she goes out she will have to explain. Explain to S.H.I.E.L.D., to Captain America, to Jane. She hopes Jane won't hate her for too long. Natalia doesn't press her straight away. It's only after what feels like a couple of hours that she pulls away and starts to encourage Daria to leave.  

The office is tiny enough that there's not even two whole steps between the chair they're sat on by the desk and the door. Outside the door, there's a crowd waiting.  

Natalia’s hand finds hers and that's the only thing that gives Daria the confidence to face them all. Especially when the guy with the eyepatch says he wants them I an official debriefing room. The words make Daria’s breath catch as blood she can never scrub or bleach from her skin dyes her hands but she blinks and they're just as pale as ever again.  

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s debriefing rooms are a lot different to the ones she remembers. There's a lot of glass and sleek lines, reminiscent of a conference room Darcy and Jane had once spent a mind-numbingly boring evening in. Natasha and Darcy sit at one end and the others ring the table, staring at Darcy. It's mildly intimidating but not really because Daria faced much worse when she was six, but when Jane walks in, Darcy feels a flash of guilt and worry.  

“Jane, I…. Please don't hate me.” 

Jane doesn't look like she's inclined to blame Darcy, which gives her hope, but there's still the small part of her brain that hates herself and believes that therefore everyone else will too. Except Natalia.  

Natalia helps Daria explain, beginning with revealing her real name and the parents that were poor and only too happy to think that they had a chance to send their only daughter to the ballet. Parents that Daria never saw again as soon as the stage doors closed and the curtains rose to reveal a terrifying truth. Some of those assembled work it out before Darcy says it, but others are still shocked when she talks about how she met Natalia as they were broken and trained by, in and for the KGB and how they quickly grew close. She skips over the red room and only briefly describes mission she was sent on, and by some unspoken agreement, miss out James in the narrative. Darcy just says she managed to get out and come to America and that's when she met Jane.  

There's a silence when the two women finish. Fury’s good eye is glaring at Darcy in what could either be an attempt to intimidate her or to size her up. Daria doesn't so much as blink. Aleksander Lukin had been Satan’s prodigy and she had lived with him for most of her long, long life. Nicholas Fury is nothing. Natasha’s fingers graze hers as Darcy surveys the others. Clint, much to Daria’s surprise, looks more sympathetic than angry; Tony is staring at a spot a couple of inches above the table in front of Darcy; Sam’s looking at the floor; Bruce has is eyes closed but he looks pained; Steve’s eyes are stormy. Jane has tears running down her face and Darcy panic’s, but then she appears to give up on self control and rushes to her, throwing her arms around Darcy’s shoulders. Darcy is more used to affection than Daria used to be but even still the action takes her by surprise. It's a relief when someone dismisses the room and Jane is persuaded to return to her laps after extracting elaborate promises that Darcy will be up as soon as possible.  

When the room is empty except for Daria and Natalia, Darcy leans into the other woman again.  

“I missed you,” she says, and Natalia stills at the sentiment.  

“I missed you too, Дашка.” Darcy only just about feels the feather kiss that the older woman presses to the top of her head.  

Jane is a worrier, however, and Darcy leaves soon to appease her and reassure her that no matter what happened, she's still here now and she's safe and happy. Daria’s surprised by how little it feels like a lie. Her shoulders drop a little with an outward rush of tension she didn't know she had.  

And Daria is happy. It gets better the longer she lives in the tower. She has Jane, free range with sciencey toys and weapons, free will and free time to spend with Natalia doing whatever they want. It's a long way from hushed and rushed secret meetings in whatever hope they could find around the training compound when they were younger. It's still hard to show affection towards each other in public after decades of being indoctrinated with the idea that emotions were a weakness and the constant fear that if anyone found out about their feelings for each other there would die, but Darcy thinks at least some of the other residents in the tower know and it doesn't feel as terrifying as she thought.  

The best part comes after a couple of months of Darcy and Jane living in the tower.  

Steve had been going on near constant missions for as long as Darcy had known him, usually accompanied by Sam. Occasionally, to begin with, Natasha had helped too, but S.H.I.E.L.D. needed her in other areas where her particular skill set was required. Daria had been asked to assist, but Natalia had read the discomfort on her face just like she had always been able to and immediately bullied or bribed or threatened S.H.I.E.L.D. to make sure that they never made the request again.  

As such, it’s a surprise to them when Steve walks into the common room with another man who isn't a member of the avengers, tower staff or S.H.I.E.L.D.. The two women are sat on the couch, Daria wrapped up in Natalia as they watch TV, confident that they had privacy, and they jump up when the two men walked in. Steve catches sight of them first and smiles at them, something lighting in his eyes as he points them out to the other man.  

 “This is Natasha and Darcy. They're like you, Buck.” 

The man next to Steve turns around and Daria’s throat constricts. She feels Natalia sieze up next to her and Steve obviously noticed something is wrong with his friend but Darcy can't hear him. It feels like her first day in the tower all over again when she found Natalia, but now Natalia is standing next to her, hand tightening around Daria’s wrist as they both stare. Daria tries to take a step forward but her knees buckle and it's only Natalia’s grip that keeps her from crumpling to the floor.  

“Дарья? Наталья?” 

“James?” 

Daria doesn't know who says it. She sees Steve frown and move, but the other man moves faster. His arms wrap around Daria and Natalia, the real flesh and blood one warm and gentle on Daria’s back, and one or three of them are crying. James’ hand brushes against Daria’s hair gently and the familiarity makes the tears rush faster. Next to her, Natalia has a tight hold on Daria and James, clutching them to her like they'll disappear into wafts of smoke if she lets go. Daria knows the feeling. It's the same feeling she's been fighting off since she found Natalia and now it's returned in full force.  

“Мои маленьке пауки,” James says, his American tongue tripping faintly over the Russian words the same way it always had.   

“Серебряный.” That is definitely Natalia. She is the only one who ever calls him Silver. Daria calls him brother. He in turn calls her little sister or little spider and Natalia is named Arachne after a story he had heard when he was little. Together they are both his little spiders. It doesn't sound so bad from a friend's lips.  

When, eventually, the three pull away, Steve still looks bewildered and blindsided. Daria doesn't understand why.  

“You were the one who connected me with James,” she says, “and we told you that we were used by the Russians.” 

“I didn't realise you meant Hydra, too,” Steve says quietly. Daria ignores that because she's learnt that avoidance is far easier and changes tact.  

“James was the one who saved me.” 

James’ hand—the metal one this time—brushes her shoulder.  

“I'm glad you got away младшая сестра. I was worried about you.” He shifts uncertainly on his feet, a shadow of guilt over his eyes. “I wanted to help you, too, Арахна, but they got to me first. They wiped everything away and exported me from Russia like they would a gun or a tank. By the time I remembered there was no way to get back to you.” 

There's the minutest of pauses before Natalia inclines her head. Daria sighs in relief and allows a brief swell of joy in her heart at the reunion of her little family group. She knows this will require more explanations, but for now they are together after decades apart and that's all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been a while! I was on holiday but I had great fun writing this in sunny southern France so I could upload it as soon as I got home! I love this but I can't remember how I came up with the idea which is annoying, I just remember being really excited about it. I might do a follow up because I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, but it depends on time available to me as I'm going into my last year before university so time is limited. Anyway, enjoy x


	8. Finding Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil Coulson was one of Darcy's favourite people. Or sorry, is. Tenses are a little tricky when you thought someone was dead for two years.
> 
> Or: Coulson Comes Back from the Dead but the iPod is Forever Lost.

When Agent Phil Coulson turned up in the middle of New Mexico, Darcy Lewis knew things were screwed. She also knew she could look after herself, dammit; he didn't need to helicopter parent.  

So she fought the minions who stole Doctor Jane Foster's things because she knew that all the information had been safe—she'd been monitoring it—but also because she'd been monitoring it and now they had taken it all and taken over and that was just rude. Agent Coulson took her iPod just to spite her and Darcy got drunk on the edge of a roof to spite him. (Jane was more bothered by the information theft because drinking on the roof had become their thing but Darcy hadn't been planning to tell Agent Coulson about that). 

Darcy handled Thor except when she let Jane handle Thor because wow that was not something she wanted to get in between. She tried very hard not to shout at either of them when they said they'd been to the temporary tent that had been erected around Thor's hammer and just about kept her lips sealed. The fact that they'd got out did not mean that they were safe and Darcy conveniently lost her phone for the rest of the day.  

The DoomBot showed up and even though his face was a placid as ever, Darcy read the tight lines on Agent Coulson's face and ran into the fray anyway. She evacuated the Pet Shop because humans could haul their own asses and ducked out of danger before Agent Coulson snapped and broke cover for the first time in his life. After the fact, she got a polite, mild-mannered suggestion about perhaps leaving it to the experienced agents made with a voice taut.  

Darcy asked if she could have her iPod back.  

Agent Coulson said no and assigned her a babysitter, the one with the arms sculpted by Michelangelo, and Darcy pretended to be grumpy but internally cheered. All having a babysitter meant was that she had someone to blame things on.  Which she did when they ended up in jail after some asshat dude with vodkaconfidence told her she had huge 'knockers' and described in quite explicit terms what he would like to do to said 'knockers'. (Darcy had taken a brief moment of derision, because who the hell called them 'knockers', then punched him. The sleaze's broken nose, she would own to. The fight that eventually involved the whole damn bar, that was not her fault and no way was she taking the fall for that). 

Her babysitter's name was Clint and he promised bail, which came in the form of everyone's favourite accountant and Darcy was gratified to see that Clint was visibly impressed when Agent Coulson didn't seem to make much of an impression on her. Darcy shrugged. She'd been in worse situations before. A bar fight was pretty standard for a girl who hijacked her teacher's car because he told her best friend she would never amount to anything.  

In the car on the way back to the lab, the two agents sat in stony silence in the front. Darcy waited for five long minutes before she asked Agent Coulson if she could have her iPod back. His refusal was polite and collected but Darcy saw the look of alarm in Agent Barton's eyes when he spotted how tightly Agent Coulson was gripping the steering wheel. 

The next day Darcy managed to badger Agent Barton and a few other S.H.I.E.L.D. cronies into helping her to break physics in Jane's lab. The wormhole failed, but Jane thanked her anyway, and shooed the agents out with marginally less prejudice than she had previously. 

When the agents finally disappeared for good (with her iPod, Darcy growled out to Jane later), Jane breathed properly again, mostly. She glared at Darcy's phone whenever it rang and pestered her to find out whether it was Agent Coulson. She kept asking Darcy had she sold her soul to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Darcy didn't know how to tell her she had been S.H.I.E.L.D. before she was even born. 

She stayed working with Doctor Foster on and off, then dragged her to Tromsø as a 'surprise birthday present' (even though it was May and Jane's birthday wasn't until October) when Agent Coulson informed her that the cube was doing weird shit because no one trusted it one iota and it was far too close to Asgard for anyone's liking. Although, apparently Norway wasn't far enough, because Loki landed in Germany and it was all over the T.V. when familiar faces turned up to take him in. Everyone knew Iron Man and everyone started trying to guess the identity of the other guy who looked a bit like that cartoon character, you know the one based off that guy who died in the war. Darcy knew who is was, though. Knew his face like her own, knew he was only just back with them, even if she didn't have the clearance to know exactly how. She didn't tell Jane until New York blew up on the news when it was all too easy for everyone to tell who most of the heroes were and for two girls who had once been in New Mexico to recognise the flutter of a red cape and crackle of lightning  

Then, two days after the Battle of Manhattan, Darcy's phone rang. It wasn't an altogether uncommon occurrence, but the main culprit was usually Agent Coulson and the number on the screen was unfamiliar. 

"Darcy Lewis? It's Deputy Director Hill. We're sending a car to take you to the airport where you'll be brought in to S.H.I.E.L.D. quarters in New York. Can you be ready in thirty minutes? We'd advise against it, but Doctor Foster can come if she must. The car will be outside in half an hour." 

Darcy mumbled agreements, then hung up the phone and rocked on her feet. Her stomach was rolling and something was ringing in her ears because she wasn't stupid and this only made sense in the sickest ways, in the sorts of ways Darcy didn't want to think about. 

She relayed the message to Jane, because her brain was rebooting in safe-mode and repeating instructions was one of the simpler things she could do. Jane looked concerned but didn't ask, instead packing two bags and making sure that they were ready at the door when a black car pulled up outside. 

The car brought them to the airport and from there they were escorted on to a squatting hunk of black metal that had probably belonged to the army at one point. The insides told much the same story, with rows of seats at the edges and equipment strewn across as though it had been hurriedly pushed to the side to make it look a bit more like a commercial plane. Darcy noticed all this because if she let her brain relax, it would start to think thoughts she didn't want to look into right now.  

The plane journey was a tense twelve hours of uncomfortable seats, uncomfortable conversations and uncomfortable thoughts. Jane tried to make conversation at various points, but Darcy's replies were terse and strained, and the conversations soon fell short. By the time the plane arrived in New York, Jane had slept only fitfully and Darcy hadn't slept at all. They were greeted by a tall woman with black hair pulled back in a slick bun. 

"I'm Maria Hill, Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. If you'd like to follow me." 

Jane glanced at Darcy, who shrugged and walked after the retreating back of the woman. Darcy didn't gawk too much (although even sneaked glimpses at various bases didn’t measure up to the really thing and it was hard not to look around too much) while Jane openly stared at some of the agents in their blue and grey and black uniforms. A couple of agents stared at them, but most went about their day, hurrying to a from various rooms. Darcy supposed they must have a lot to do with the destruction of Manhattan and all. 

Deputy Director Hill led them to an office which was as bland as Agent Coulson's most professional face, but Darcy had to cut the thought because he still hadn't turned up. She settled herself into one of the hard, white, plastic chairs and crossed her arms. Jane perched on the arm-rest until a black guy with an eye-patch and a dramatic leather coat swept into the room and Hill gestured for Jane to follow her. Jane threw one last look at Darcy and Darcy beamed her most dazzling smile and winked. Jane rolled her eyes, but moved out into the corridor. Just before the door closed, voices filtered through the shrinking gap as the two women started to talk about work. 

Darcy tugged her hat off and placed it on the desk and kept her features carefully schooled in uninterested indifference as the bald guy glared at her out of his good eye. She had learnt bland and boring from the best. He introduced himself as Director Nick Fury—Darcy had a beat to be impressed that she had been sent to the principal's office—then, without preamble, started the interrogation. 

"I find it interesting that you're listed as one of agent Coulson's emergency contacts." Fury propped his black combat boots up the dark wood of the desk—there were scuffs and scratches where he'd obviously done the same thing many times before. It was the only feature in the entire room that appeared to have any character. Darcy relaxed back into her own chair and shrugged as she replied.  

"Well, you know me, I'm one of his favourite people. Was one of his favourite people." Her voice only caught for the merest of seconds. Fury either didn't notice or pretended not to notice. Either way, Darcy was grateful. He did however, give her a flat look.  

"Sure. I'll believe that. I've heard the stories of New Mexico," he said, his voice dry and sarcastic.  

"Okay whatever Barton says was a lie it's all his fault and no one died in the fight he was fine after two days in the ICU," Darcy replied immediately. Fury ignored her.  

"You were the last person he called." 

"Yeah. He wanted to ask me a favour."  

"To accompany Doctor Foster to Norway." 

"If you knew then why did you bring it up," Darcy snapped, irritated. Once again, Fury acted as though she hadn't spoken at all. 

"Why did he ask you to go to Tromsø with Doctor Foster?" 

"I don't know. Maybe he thought she would be more cooperative if she had a friend with her."  It was hard not to make everything she said sarcastic and biting, but Darcy fought to keep her tone even. 

"And you were the only available friend?" 

"Yes. Certainly the only one who could understand New Mexico which was kind of important when Thor was flying majestically across our screens in glorious HD on the news." Maybe she didn't entirely succeed. Something like irritation flashed across Fury's features for half a second but Darcy couldn't really find it in herself to care all that much. "Look, why am I here. Where's Agent Coulson?" 

"Agent Coulson was killed in action during the Battle of Manhattan." 

Later Darcy learned that even when you see it coming, a bullet hurts like hell. Darcy snatched a breath and worked extra hard on appearing as unbothered as possible. Her internal organs seemed to be failing, because her stomach was rolling and her chest was tight and there was a small explosion in her temples where a migraine started to hammer at the inside of her head. Fury watched her closely but Darcy had been playing this game too long to let him see anything she didn't want him to. 

"How?" Was all she said instead. 

"Another mutual friend of ours." 

Darcy nodded, short and sharp, and made a mental note to do everything in her power to hurt Loki as much as she could in any way she could, regardless of any familial ties to people she actually liked.  

"Will there be a funeral?" Darcy left a beat. "His family?" 

"Didn't have any," Fury said. His eye narrowed a fraction but Darcy refused to give him anything. 

"So no funeral?" 

"His friends and colleagues will be able to commemorate his passing when proper procedures have been carried out." 

Darcy's eyes flickered down to Fury's hands steepled under his chin. A muscle twitched in the side of his hand. It's was an interesting tic but it was definitely a tell. Darcy stored that information, too. She let a few minutes pass in silence before she crossed one leg over the other and changes the subject.  

"Why am I here?" 

Fury's good eye observed her analytically. Darcy met his gaze. She wouldn't back down, not with this. Several tense heartbeats thudded against her chest before Fury swung his legs off the desk and stood up to pace around.  

"Look. For whatever reason, you're apparently only acting dumb. So I'm gonna level with you. Three days ago, shit went down. We lost men, good men, including Agent Coulson. I don't know why he gave a damn about you but he did, so you're here. Because we figured if he cared about you then you might care about him and might wanted to know what happened." 

Darcy stared at Fury and something ticked in her head behind the migraine. She crossed her arms and glared at him.  

"How kind of you. Why am I here?" 

"I just told you." 

"You told me that you thought you should tell me that Agent Coulson is dead, because for some inexplicable reason, despite New Mexico, he liked me. You could have told me that over the phone. If you really wanted to be sensitive, you might have sent someone out to tell me instead. Why am I here?"  

Fury gave her a look that might have been his version of approving appraisal.  

"Doctor Foster's area of research has suddenly become relevant to our interests." 

"Right. Now we're getting somewhere. You want to use Jane. So that answers why she's in S.H.I.E.L.D. and why I'm in New York. It doesn't answer why I am the one sat in this office with the Director of an underground government organization." 

"I want to know why exactly Coulson gave a damn about you." 

"If Coulson wouldn't tell you, why do you think I would?" 

Darcy had a pretty good idea why. She suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. had assumed she was a regular civilian who would be easy to crack.  

Fury's answer was interrupted by a knock on the door and an agent with nervous, flitting eyes told him that there had been an incident down in quarantine. Fury moved quickly, with only a tiny flicker of his eye towards Darcy that made her want to know more about what was going on in quarantine. She couldn't do anything about it, though, because Director Fury was replaced by Deputy Director Hill. Jane bounced along behind her, gushing about how cool everything was and the equipment that would be available to her. 

Darcy let herself bubble up again and let Jane's enthusiasm fizzle out a little before she turned to Hill, who said that they were going to be escorted to S.H.I.E.L.D. barracks as temporary accommodation. Both Darcy and Jane shrugged in half-hearted acquiescence and followed the way to what would be their rooms. Halfway down the first residential corridor, however, they met a familiar face which Darcy couldn't place straightaway, but which recognised them immediately.  

"Hey, it's the Mad Scientist and Igor!" 

Darcy grinned. 

"Watch it, Suzie. You might wake up to the same fate as the butcher." 

Clint mocked horror then beamed at her and Hill rolled her eyes. A brief exchanged revealed that he was here to grab some stuff before heading back to Tony Stark's place where the 'Avengers' were kipping so that everyone felt sure that the rest of the newly formed team was still alive. A few moments later had an invitation to join him because Stark probably wouldn't give a damn but if he did then no one cared. 

Darcy agreed immediately because she would never turn down an opportunity to stay in Tony Stark's house without sleeping with him and also because she imagined it was only a couple hundred times better than S.H.I.E.L.D. barracks. Jane agreed immediately because she wanted to see Thor, even if she didn't say that was the reason, but Darcy caught Clint's microscopic wince before he whisked them out of Hill's disapproving supervision.  

(Jane took the lack of Thor more graciously than Darcy anticipated. She only threatened to kill someone and there was only one broken bottle at the end of it.) 

They ended up staying at Stark's for two weeks—because, just as Clint had said, he didn't give a damn, just said 'woo, new science people' and downed another shot—time which Darcy packed with baking, a hobby she hadn't been properly able to indulge in for over a year; looking out for her new cluster of scientists; pranking people with Clint and just generally making sure she was always occupied so she didn't have the mental capacity to open the box at the back of her mind that had been locked with seven keys and a chain and labelled Do Not Touch. 

After two weeks, Ms 'Call-me-Pepper-everyone-else-here-does' Potts managed to find the two friends an apartment that wasn't outrageously expensive and wasn't too far from Stark Tower, where they had both been offered jobs. It meant they didn't have to be constantly surrounded by superheroes and also that they had a retreat where they could hide if they weren't feeling up to social interaction. Darcy got good at making excuses that no one ever seemed to see through.  

She was also extremely glad that they were out of the way of 'Really-if-you-don't-call-me-Pepper-I-will-fire-you' Potts and Stark after the whole Mandarin and Extremis debacle at the beginning of the next year. Jane seemed to be thinking along the same lines, and also had a reason to escape even further and in November they flew all the way across the pond to London. Darcy, ever the loyal minion, offered to join her and Jane gave her the face that was always the same, whether it was used for good or for evil, which meant 'do you think you really had a choice. Darcy was fine with that. 

Darcy was not fine with Aliens Invade Part Three: Now With Even More Mythical Creatures.  

They survived it together, again, and she took pity on Ian-the-Intern, who was not as versed in terrifying battles as the rest of them, and kissed him. It was nothing much special and she let him down gently, letting him run free as Jane started her rant on how wonderful it was that they could rely on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help, their generosity knows no bounds. Darcy bore it out, but her chest hurt with the memory of a similar alien threat and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who bailed them out. A team turned up the next day but they were not the same team that appeared in New Mexico and there was no chatting to the agents and hanging around the danger-zone. Both Jane and Darcy were banned from the area and they complained all the way back to the apartment until Thor was there. Then it was only Darcy complaining. 

The next April, the world went to shit, yet again. Darcy watched from New York as Washington D.C. went down in hellfire and considered the fact that there had been a opportunity at one point to have stayed in London. Jane started to bitch out S.H.I.E.L.D. again and Darcy decided she was good where she was. Especially because that was Tony Stark bitching alongside her, and Tony Stark was a lot of fun. 

What wasn't fun was looking through the files that were leaked during the devastation of D.C.. J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony's A.I., had downloaded the files onto his server, and was happy to help when Darcy asked to see them. It was simple curiosity at first, but then she found the file that related to New Mexico, and it prompted her to look up the file on Greenwich.  

One name was horrifyingly familiar and she rocked on her feet. Her stomach was rolling and something was ringing in her ears because she wasn't stupid but it looked like she had been for a long time. Jane found her an indeterminate amount of time later, staring at the screen with wide, wild eyes, and shut the program down before demanding Tony find a way to contact S.H.I.E.L.D.. Tony had questions, so many questions, but Jane put on her Science Convention game face and just talked loudly over the top of him until he gave up and said he'd do something.  

The first call went to Hill, who told them Fury was dead. The next call went to Natasha, who told them that no he wasn't, but he was out of the system for a while. Darcy scoffed and told her that if he thought he could get out of it that easily, he had another thing coming. Jane took the phone and Darcy opened up a program and enlisted the help of J.A.R.V.I.S. to track down Fury. Tony watched from the sidelines, reluctantly silent and ignorant of what the hell was going on. Of course, Jane didn't know the real reason either, but she knew slightly more than he did. Darcy had automatically assumed her unextraordinary bland face, but the more she thought about how she learnt it, the angrier she grew, and eventually she let her face betray her fury as her fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. 

That was probably what scared Jane the most. Tony's gasp was saved for when the whereabouts of both Ex-Director Nick Fury and Director Phil Coulson flashed up on the screen. 

"Oh, how convenient. They're both in the same place. Tony, get us to Massachusetts. Now," Darcy growled.  

In less than an hour, the S.I. jet was touching down and there was a car waiting for them. Jane weakly protested Darcy's driving, but Darcy grinned savagely and Tony pointed out that maybe they should let her just this once. J.A.R.V.I.S. kept the pulsing blue dot on the screen on the dashboard so that Darcy could follow it all the way to what looked like an abandoned warehouse. When they all clambered out of the vehicle, Tony blanched and said that he recognised it. It was an old S.S.R. facility.  

It was frighteningly easy to get into the building. The dummy fence had fooled no one except maybe a couple of unsuspecting hikers over the years, and Darcy disabled the second, electric fence with no hassle whatsoever. J.A.R.V.I.S. made short work of the security systems, and Darcy waved energetically to the cameras before strolling in and settling down onto a couch in one of the larger rooms. Jane perched uncomfortably on an arm, while Tony shrugged and threw himself down onto the other couch. 

Darcy clicked her tongue at the response time because five minutes from the initial breach was unacceptable, but when the first armed team charged through the door, she didn't move except to put her hands up and demand to be taken to the Director. 

"He's in a meeting right now, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait. If you'd like to follow me I could lead you to a nice cell where you can pass the time." The agent was a tallish, blonde woman with hard eyes. Darcy smiled back at her. 

"Well would you look at that, Coulson and Fury in a meeting together, how handy! Just the two people I wanted to speak to." 

"Who are you and where did you get your information?" The woman bit out again. Darcy stood up to face her, and she brandished the gun at her. "Stay back or I'll shoot." 

"I don't think you want to do that." 

"Oh really, why?" 

The rest of the room watched the two women like they would a tennis match. Tony seemed amused, Jane looked vaguely concerned and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team sported various expression of fear, annoyance and worry. Darcy smirked. 

"Tell Coulson that Lucy has come home." 

The room dissolved into complete confusion at her statement. Darcy didn't move, though. She stood her ground until the blonde turned to another agent and sent him scurrying off down other corridors. When he returned, it was with the two men Darcy had wanted to see. 

Fury was the first to speak. 

"Lewis what the hell are you doing here." 

Darcy laughed. In the corner of her eye, Jane cringed. 

"Hey, Sir, remember when I asked you that question about five times and you never really answered me?" 

"Darcy Lewis, I command you to-" 

"You know what? Fuck you. You're not in charge of anyone anymore, Nick, and you were never in charge of me." 

"Darcy." Phil Coulson stepped out in front of Fury, his voice softer and eyes pleading. Darcy shook her head. 

"Use my real name." 

"Lucy, please." 

"Wait, what?" Tony burst out. Jane hit him, but she looked equally confused. Darcy ignored them. She stared at Coulson until she couldn’t stay still any longer and she launched herself at him. 

"How dare you!" Her first punch caught his cheekbone and his head snapped to the side. The second punch glanced off his shoulder. The third punch wasn't really a punch at all, and Darcy's body followed it until she was clinging to Coulson. The tears were a surprise, hot and angry and relieved all at the same time, but he hugged her back, shushing her and humming in her ear. "How dare you," she repeated, but it was weaker this time. 

"I'm sorry. Lucy, I'm so sorry." 

"Right, can someone explain what the hell is going on?" Tony's voice was loud in the uncomfortable stillness of the room. Darcy rolled her eyes and pulled away slightly, but kept herself tucked under Coulson's arm. Most of the eyes staring at them were accusing, but Tony's were just confused and Jane looked completely blindsided.  

"Darcy Lewis is me, but the name is wrong. I had to change my name to stay hidden when I went to college, when I moved away from where I could be protected. My real name, the one I was born with, is Lucy Austen-Coulson." 

The room exploded. Darcy didn't blame them much. She didn't move though, just kept herself tucked under her father's arm and decided that next time he tried to helicopter-parent, she would have absolutely zero problems with it.  

That dd remind her of one thing, though. 

"Hey, can I have my iPod back?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. Please don't kill me. I know it's been so long since I updated but A Levels are killing me, honestly. I meant to try and get this up for Christmas but it just wouldn't end and it sort of spiralled out of control. But hey, at least you've got a long piece to make up for the long accidental hiatus. Anyway. It still didn't end how I wanted it but I couldn't work out how to tie it up and in the end I just wanted to post it so yeah, apologies for that. I hope you're all still with me and don't hate me too much an I also hope you enjoyed this piece because I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.


	9. Darling Dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick finds himself stuck with a daughter he didn't know he wanted. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Other times it's not the worst.
> 
> Or: Nick Fury is the Universe's Favourite Joke

Someone, somewhere, is laughing at Nick. He stares down at the tiny girl who's glaring back at him with her arms crossed and eyebrows pulled low over her eyes. She's small but blue eyes glint dangerously behind glasses and strands of dark hair and Nick's seen that look before; on trained agents, not on girls who can't be older than ten. 

"Who are you," she demands. "Where's my mother?" 

* * *

_The fire is hot and her skin prickles but she's not about to show weakness in front of anyone because she's fed up of being called a_ _cry-baby_ _and a prissy girl. There are many people gathered now to watch the blaze of a building that her mother had been inside, but there's a tall black man off to the side who grabs her attention. The police won't talk to her because she's too young, the ambulance men are helping those who got out and the fire-fighters are still trying to quell the inferno, so she marches over to the stranger and glares up at him._  

 _"Who are you," she demands. "Where's my mother?"_  

* * *

Nick ends up taking the kid home because no one else will have the livewire of a girl who snarls and spits and anyone who tries to comfort and console her. For some reason she'll only stay reasonably calm while he's around, which is ridiculous because he's the reason she's in this mess to begin with. Perhaps that's why he ends up signing his soul away to keep her—this was his first solo mission and now this kid is mother-less as a result. 

* * *

_Everyone tells her that everything will be okay and it's okay to cry and I'm sorry for your loss_ _and she hates it. The sixth worker that comes in to the room she's been_ _rele_ _gated_ _to leaves with a broken nose. Eventually the tall man from the street comes in again and he doesn't say that everything will be okay. He doesn't say it's okay to cry and he doesn't say I'm sorry for your loss. He just asks if she wants to stay with him and she says yes. He tells her that neither of them really had much choice, but they both seem to be okay with it._  

* * *

Her name is Darcy Lewis and she's seven years old and now Nick is her legal guardian. He tells Peggy and she laughs but agrees to his requests to keep her safe and out of every possible records. They bury her existence almost completely and make sure her school doesn't ask too many questions. 

* * *

_Darcy meets Nick's friend called Peggy, who introduces herself as Nick's boss and surrogate mother._  

 _"Does that make you my grandmother?"_  

 _"Oh no, that makes me sound far too old. Just call me Aunt Peggy. Now, we're going to keep you safe."_  

* * *

Phil asks Nick why he's got three pink elastic bands around his wrist and Nick has twelve different excuses prepared but he's not in the mood for questions. 

"Why have you got red sauce on your shirt," he asks instead and is rewarded by Phil's long-suffering sigh that is reserved for Barton alone. He can talk on this subject for hours, so Nick lets him. 

* * *

_Darcy tries hard not to be too much of a bother because she's pretty sure Nick has never had to deal with anything like this before, but she refuses to change herself completely, so she keeps running in the playground and earning skinned knees and snapped hairbands and wild, frizzy hair tangled with twigs and leaves. She's proud of Nick when he starts producing hairbrushes from nowhere and handing her elastic bands with disapproval on his face every time he catches her in such a state._  

 _She still doesn't like it when he grounds her, though._  

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to send him back out almost immediately, but Nick refuses for a straight three months. Darcy's only just getting settled in, so he makes that his excuse to Peggy for as long as he can, and pretends that it's nothing to do with his sudden lack of confidence; he's not supposed to be unsure of himself. Everyone in the organization expects more from him.  

Eventually not even Peggy can run interference for him anymore and he accepts a small job in Kentucky.  

Darcy watches him pack suspiciously, but Nick promises to explain everything when he gets back. 

"One week at the most, okay, Grim? If I'm not back, phone Aunt Peggy on the cell phone in the second kitchen drawer." 

* * *

_Darcy counts to three hundred to make sure Nick isn't coming back, then runs straight for his room which is a strictly no-go zone. Darcy is_ _curious_ _however, about what exactly Nick does for work. Aunt Peggy had said she was his boss, but she never mentioned what for, and now Nick is going away for a_ _week but thinks there is a_ _possibility_ _something might go wrong. Darcy's friend Luke's dad goes away to conferences all the time, but he always knows precisely when he's coming home, not '_ _a week at the most but just in case remember to call Aunt Peggy'. Nothing he packed looked really appropriate for business meetings either._  

* * *

Nick returns to the safe-house that had accidentally become home at one in the morning, six days after he left it. The gash on his forearm is bandaged and the bleeding appears to be stopping, which means that it should be gone in a month or so. His eye, however.... Nick catches a glance of himself in the mirror in the hallway and grimaces. Gauze is wrapped tight around his head, pressing a wad of material against his left eye. Both are stained with blotchy crimson and, in all honesty, Nick thinks he looks like something out of a horror film. He's going to have to wake Darcy up tomorrow with this. 

He looks up to the top of the stairs and bites back a curse. Or he could wake her up now. 

* * *

_Nick closes the door quietly. It's obviously an attempt at not waking her up, but it's also irrelevant because she had rigged up a rudimentary alarm to alert her whenever the front door was opened. It had been ready three days ago. Darcy had been ready to phone Aunt Peggy tomorrow._  

 _She stares down at Nick as he lowers his bag to the floor and notes the two bandages even as he grimaces at his_ _refle_ _ction_ _in the mirror. She scrunches her nose up at the blood, but she's not backing down from an explanation now._  

 _Nick looks up, spots her, sighs. Darcy crosses her arms defiantly._  

* * *

Nick gets used to the idea that Darcy knows what he does for a job. Getting used to being down an eye is slightly more difficult, but Darcy jokes about having a good eye and having his eye on people and it's not so bad. She tells him he should wear an eyepatch like a pirate; it gets strange looks from everyone at the base but Darcy manages to find him a captains hat and he wears it around the house until the eyepatch doesn't feel like much of a big deal anymore. 

* * *

_Darcy crows for a full week about how she managed to find out the secret and also about how she has a real-life spy for a dad. It's the first time she addresses Nick as such and he starts._  

 _"Do you mean that?"_  

 _Darcy shrugs. "I never had one before, and you're good enough."_  

 _Nick laughs a little self-consciously and agrees to her pirate idea a little easier after that._  

* * *

Life starts picking up pace as Nick takes on more assignments and grows more comfortable leaving Darcy alone for longer periods of time. She ploughs on through school and Nick feels more comfortable slipping her under the radar because she's somehow become a master as deflection and obfuscation while he's been away. Of course, this also means that she's gotten better at deceiving him, and he debates at least twice a month the benefits of hiding trackers in every item of clothing she owns. He doesn't know whether to be glad or concerned when she heads off to Culver University. 

* * *

_Darcy learns more skills as she lives with and without Nick. He calls her a hellhound, the same as he has since she fell into his life. She calls him Nick, mostly, except when he comes home with blood everywhere and she sighs and calls him dad. She makes new friends and new rules for herself because either Nick isn't home to implement his own, or she deflects and disguises and distracts. She never does anything bad, just wants a bit more freedom. She's excited when she gets into Culver and immediately searches for on campus_ _accommodation; this will be the most freedom she's had ever_ _._  

* * *

Nick is impressed that Darcy manages as long as she does without getting into trouble, especially squatting in the Hulk's old neighbourhood. They text once a week at least to let the other know they're alive, more if Darcy wants something. She studies Political Science and collects friends like no one's business. Nick wonders if he should be jealous. He has Phil, though, and Maria and Peggy when he goes to see her in the home. He even has Barton and Romanoff, to a lesser extent, once he manages to get used to the fact that his agent drags a hissing and scratching Russian assassin in off the streets. It's vaguely annoying how much it reminds him of Darcy. 

* * *

_The last time Darcy spoke to Nick was Saturday, as usual, so she's fairly sure he's still alive. She texts him at three o'clock in the morning after she dra_ _nk Agent Arms under the table and stole his knives and his bow and arrow. She doesn't get a reply on her phone, but she gets as good or better the next morning._  

 _"I don't know why, but someone important likes you, Miss Lewis," Agent Coulson grumbles as he hands back her iPod. Darcy's grin is one she has perfected over the years: one part wicked, one part smug._  

 _"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."_  

* * *

Nick's glad when Phil suggests sending Doctor Foster and Miss Lewis off to Norway when the Tesseract starts playing up. He's under no illusions about Darcy's unfortunate habit of getting herself into and out of situations, but it's easier to know that she's tucked away in Tromso when he has to corral five grumpy and reluctant heroes into saving Manhattan from space-lizards. When she comes charging back immediately after, it's all he can do to fend her off. 

* * *

_Darcy is furious that Nick allowed her to be packed away to Norway, but Jane is desperate. Thor was one of the_ _members_ _of the boy-band fighting the creatures pouring out of the sky and she pulls his strings until he flies them back to New York_ _. He won't do anymore than that, however, and Darcy_ _interprets_ _that to mean 'find them yourselves and don't break our cover any more than you already have'. She shrugs and throws herself into the nearest taxi, dragging Jane and all their luggage behind her._  

 _"Stark Tower, please. Extra if you get us there in_ _fo_ _rty_ _-five minutes."_  

* * *

Nick lasts three days before he succumbs to the constant texts that keep his phone buzzing non-stop. No less than seven senior staff ask him variations on who has his personal number and who would want him that badly. Nick keeps expecting Phil to appear at his elbow with one raised eyebrow and his familiar dry humour, but he's still down in quarantine and buried deeper than Darcy. Eventually Maria gives him a withering look and Nick sighs and rolls his eyes before marching down town to Stark Tower. 

* * *

_Darcy keeps her phone on her for the first seventy two hours she spends in Stark Tower, sending anything and everything to Nick in order to annoy him enough to_ _turn_ _up on Stark's doorstep. Jane is too busy being pissed at the lack of Thor, Clint is both mourning Coulson (Darcy's heart sank when she heard the news) and familiar with Darcy's eccentricities. No_ _one notices anything untoward. Natasha keeps giving her_ _sideway_ _s_ _glances, but everyone is surprised when the resident A.I. opens the elevator door to admit Nick in his all his intimidating black-leather glory._  

* * *

Nick strides into what appears to be the common room of Stark's ridiculous tower. Darcy is sprawled across one of the couches, next to a woman he recognises as Doctor Foster. She's the only one who starts grinning when he walks in, even though she's not even looking in his direction; Tony scowls, Barton and Romanoff stand to attention, Banner looks vaguely uncomfortable, Doctor Foster looks confused. 

"Sir, is there anything we can help you with," Romanoff asks. Nick glares in the direction of the couch—Darcy still isn't looking—and crosses his arms. 

* * *

_Darcy gives him a chance to make a fool of himself before she swings herself up and over the arm of the couch. She beams and runs at Nick to throw herself around his neck. He neither moves, nor changes expression, but Darcy's laughing anyway and everyone else looks_ _gobsmacked_ _._  

 _"Oh, have you met? You should have told me you knew my dad, guys!"_  

 _Nick's eye twitches as Darcy_ _deta_ _ches_ _herself and looks smugly at the_ _tableau of stricken, horrified and_ _startle_ _d_ _faces in front of her. The two of them last a full minutes before Darcy cracks up and Nick cracks a smile._  

* * *

Someone, somewhere, is laughing at Nick. He looks at the ragtag band of superheroes that have somehow managed to work together to save the world, and looks at his daughter standing delightedly in the middle of it all. He remembers the shock when the team found out, and decides maybe it's not too bad if he gets to laugh at them, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tony regains the use of his mouth before he regains the use of his brain. "So if you're Fury's kid, why are you white?"_   
>  _Clint grins for the first time since the battle which should be a warning. "Oh my God, Tony, you can't just ask someone why they're white."_   
>  _Darcy glances at Natasha and she obligingly smacks both of them on the back of the head._   
>  _They wait until the boys have gone to laugh about it._


	10. Networking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy receives an offer of employment for Jane while she is off in Asgard. Darcy contacts Stark Industries. Darcy finds herself with new opportunities.
> 
> Or: Darcy is moving up in the world (but she'll always love Jane)

**To** : [stark@stark.industries.com](mailto:stark@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : Doctor Foster 

 

Mr. Stark, 

We received a letter from your company regarding the hiring of Doctor Jane Foster. In you capacity as an Avenger, you may or may not know that Jane is currently off-world with her royal beau and is therefore unable to accept your offer of a position in your company at this present moment in time. I will discuss the job with her as soon as she returns, but unfortunately there is, as of yet, no sign of when this will be. 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : FW: Doctor Foster 

 

Ms. Potts, 

I previously e-mailed Mr. Stark about an offer of a job for Doc. Foster and have as yet received no reply. A helpful online presence suggested I may have more luck with you so I have forwarded the previous e-mail. 

Kind Regards,

Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

 

> _To:_[ _stark@stark.industri_](mailto:stark@stark.industri) _..._  

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: FW: Doctor Foster 

 

Ms. Lewis, 

Thank you for getting in contact with me. Tony does not handle Stark Industries anymore which may explain the lack of a reply to your initial e-mail. He does, however claim that Dr. Foster is a 'totally necessary addition to the company—she'll complete the scientist set' and as such we are willing to wait until Dr. Foster returns from her trip to Asgard with Prince Thor. I hope this answers your questions but if you have any other concerns please do not hesitate to let us know. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries;  

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : Conditions 

 

Ms. Potts, 

I was wondering if you could inform me more of the conditions regarding Doc. Foster's hiring. The letter sent to the labs in London were extremely vague. For example, would I be allowed to join Jane and continue in my role as assistant or would that not be possible at all? 

Regarding Jane and Thor's return: I have not yet heard anything from her about when she is planning on leaving the ongoing party up in the crown halls because all she tells me is that it's amazing and then starts babbling about the foreign science and magic. Perhaps Mr. Stark and his team may have heard more from Thor? 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: Conditions 

 

Ms. Lewis, 

The conditions for Dr. Foster's hiring have not been completely finalised and are available for negotiation. If Dr. Foster wanted you to remain as her assistant than something could be arranged. 

Regarding Dr. Foster and Prince Thor's return: The Avengers currently assembled in Stark Tower have not had much communication from Prince Thor at all and so I am sorry to say neither of us can be of help on this front. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : Update 

 

Ms. Potts, 

I have finally received word from Doc. Foster that she plans to stay on Asgard for another two months because they're holding a feast or celebrations or some other ritual that Thor wants her to see. I have let her know that there is news waiting and she said she'd deal with it as soon as she got back. Then she and Thor had to go party so that was the end of that conversation. 

I will see to it that Jane sorts everything out on this end as soon as she gets back. 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: Update 

 

Ms. Lewis, 

I am sorry for the late reply, I had to deal with an incident yesterday that prevented me from seeing to my responsibilities such as checking and replying to e-mails. 

Thank you for letting me know the estimated return of Dr. Foster and Prince Thor; I will be sure to pass the information along to his teammates. 

On an unrelated note, I notice that in your e-mail signature you call yourself a scientist wrangler. Is this exclusively limited to Dr. Foster or would you be available to work with others? 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: RE: Update 

 

Ms. Potts, 

As you are obviously aware, Doc. Foster is currently in Asgard and therefore I have not had many scientists to wrangle recently. It would probably be more accurate to say that I've become a science-equipment-babysitter or a lab-sitter in the same way you would ask someone to looks after your house when you go on holiday. 

May I ask as to why you are interested? 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : Science Wrangler 

 

Ms. Lewis, 

Would it be at all possible for you to join me in New York if I were to offer you a job with Stark Industries as an official Scientist Wrangler? It would be exceedingly helpful.  We have had yet another incident at the Tower and your assistance would be indispensable. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: Science Wrangler 

 

Ms. Potts, 

Are you serious? 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : Official Scientist Wrangler 

 **Attachments** : _dlewis_contract.doc_

 

Ms. Lewis, 

I would be extremely grateful if you would consider the proposition. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: Official Scientist Wrangler 

 

Ms. Potts, 

Give me a week to sort things out in London and to find tickets and accommodation etc. And I'll be there. I just need to make sure the lab stays safe and working and let Jane know. 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: RE: Official Scientist Wrangler 

 

Ms. Lewis, 

I will organize transport and accommodation for you. If you let me know when you will be available to join us, I will make sure everything is sorted for you. You can check and sign the contract when you arrive. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **From** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: RE: RE: Official Scientist Wrangler 

 

Ms. Potts, 

I think I'll have everything fixed over here by Wednesday and am available any time after that. Thank you for the opportunity. 

Kind Regards

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To** : [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com) 

 **From** : [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject** : RE: RE: RE: RE: Official Scientist Wrangler 

Attachments: _dlewis_travel.zip_

 

Ms. Lewis, 

Thank you for you prompt response time. We had another incident yesterday evening and I wait in anticipation of your arrival.  

You will be met at the airport on this side by a Mr. Grant and brought to Stark Tower as soon as you land. 

Virginia Potts 

CEO Stark Industries; 

Chairman Stark Industries 

New York 

* * *

**To:** [potts@stark.industries.com](mailto:potts@stark.industries.com)  

 **From:** [dlewis@gmail.com](mailto:dlewis@gmail.com)  

 **Subject:** RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Official Scientist Wrangler 

 

Ms Potts, 

I've got everything sorted on my side. I'll see you tomorrow. 

Kind Regards,

D. Lewis

(Scientist Wrangler) 

* * *

**To:** [doctorjfoster@outlook.com](mailto:doctorjfoster@outlook.com) 

 **From:** [dlewis@stark.industries.com](mailto:dlewis@stark.industries.com) 

 **Subject:** IMPORTANT 

 

Jane, 

So I've already told you this but you obviously weren't listening because Volstagg was shouting about a seven legged boar in the background. Anyway. The lab is safe, the machines are alive and so am I. I am, however, back stateside.  

Just take a moment to check my e-mail address at the top of this message. 

Now look again because I know you haven't actually realized what it means because you are stunningly unobservant when looking at anything other than your data. 

Damn right: I got a job at Stark Industries. 

You also have one waiting for you if you check the official looking letter I left on your bedside table. Yes I know it looks scary but it actually contains awesome opportunities. I know. I looked. I got a job first. 

As Official Scientist Wrangler for Stark Industries—with my primary focus being Stark and Banner (and you when you get your ass over here and accept the job). Pepper Potts is honestly my favourite person ever, sorry Jane and Thor, you've been overtaken. 

I have to go now because Stark has managed to explode another trashcan, but I miss you loads so hurry up and come back home to 'Murica. 

P.S. Tell Thor to come too. He has a team he has been neglecting. 

Darcy Lewis 

Official Scientist Wrangler Stark Industries 

New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fun little thing because I wanted to write in e-mails. That's all


	11. ((Agent)) Darcy Lewis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy watched and paid attention and noticed things and sometimes it mattered.
> 
> Or: Darcy is an agent before she's recruited

In the middle of it all—while Clint cried and Natasha pretended not to, while Tony escaped to crash around in his workshop and Pepper joined him with the excuse of supervision, while Bruce and Steve stared, while Thor and Jane stood uncertain off to the side—in the middle of it all, Darcy looked sideways at the shadow behind Agent Coulson. 

Nick Fury wasn't looking at her; he was watching his agents, and she was not one of them. Coulson wasn't looking at her either; he was reaching for his friends, and she was not part of their dynamic. 

So Darcy looked sideways at the ex-director. 

She wondered how much it really meant to him to give up that job. She wondered how much faith he had in Agent Phillip J Coulson to give that job to him. 

Darcy had been late to work that morning, which meant she had come in by the back elevator just a few seconds before a living, breathing Agent Coulson had walked out of the main elevator shaft. She didn't think anyone had even noticed her arrival, so she stayed in the corner and held her coffee still while everyone stared at the men who had stepped out first and she stared at the man behind. 

She took a sip of the now-tepid liquid and let the bitter taste of it sink in to her tongue before she swallowed it properly.  

The closest to Darcy was Jane, who looked like she'd just tried to work out two plus two and come up with sixteen. The last time Darcy had seen Jane look like that was when she woke up at four twenty-three in the morning. She hadn't been screaming, and she didn't mention a nightmare, but Darcy saw it and made hot chocolate. The fact that she hadn't been to sleep yet that night had been mostly irrelevant, but the fact that Jane hadn't asked was perhaps the most important evidence that something was wrong. 

Thor's expression was the most unusual. He watched Agent Coulson with a cocked head and slightly puzzled expression, like something didn't add up now, or like something hadn't added up before and this was the missing piece of the puzzle. Darcy loved Thor, but she didn't pretend to understand Asgardian psychology, for all their anatomy was parallel to a human's.  

Darcy glanced briefly over the tangle of three in the middle of the room. She ignored the white knuckles belonging to hands with blue nail polish, she ignored the gritted teeth belonging to a mouth with a healing split lip, she ignored the tears on a face that normally betrayed no emotion. 

Bruce's expression was similar to Jane's, but not the same. Just as they were similar but not the same. Many people forgot that science was a wide area of study, and the focus of Doctor Banner and Doctor Foster's research were wildly different. Both of them were physicists, but Jane looked out into the universe and Bruce looked inwards into the heart of matter. Bruce looked like he'd just tried to find four divided by two and been left with seven. 

Steve's eyes didn't leave Coulson. They were hollow and shadowed and his jaw was slack as his breath came just a little too quick. Darcy remembered the chaos of the fall and the haunted look Steve wore when he returned with the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. on his shoulders and a never-forgotten name on his lips. 

Darcy noted all of this and filed it to the back of her mind for later. Instead, she watched Nicholas Joseph Fury. She watched him glance at Steve and Bruce, watched him look at Jane and Thor, watched him watch the three people in the centre of the room. Watched him feel guilty about it. 

He didn't say so. His one eye didn't say so. The turn of his lips didn't say so. It was in the angle of his hips, the tension in his right bicep, the single gun tucked under all his protective layers of black and leather. 

Darcy heard Jane complaining on the phone once. Not maliciously—Jane could never be malicious—but in a soft, frustrated voice. Darcy knew that she wasn't what Jane had expected or wanted, but she wouldn't apologise. Her first day, she told Doctor Foster than she was a scientist and, had the woman been a cruel type, she would have rolled her eyes. As it was, she saved the mutter about how political science wasn't a real science until she was far enough away that Darcy only heard it because she was listening. Darcy shrugged. She hadn't meant it cruelly. 

Darcy's first best friend had never liked science. She didn't care for watching and waiting and making notes; said it was boring. Darcy watched her and waited and made notes and a hypothesis and, when Harriet ditched her for the shiny new boyfriend in high school, she wasn't surprised.  

Darcy read people that way that most read stories, the way that Jane read stars, the way that Bruce read atoms, the way that Tony read machines, the way that Pepper read Tony, the way that Steve read soldiers, the way that Clint read situations, the way that Natasha read targets, the way that Coulson read agents. 

The way that Fury read his people. 

These were his people, and Darcy didn't doubt that he had some hand in the separation of the two agents from their old handler. He certainly had to have some involvement in the resurrection of Agent Coulson. 

When Coulson, Natasha and Clint pulled apart, chaos erupted in the room. Steve, Bruce, Clint and Natasha were talking over each other at Coulson, Thor and Jane discussed something that didn't make much sense together, and Tony and Pepper appeared from somewhere so the man could launch himself at Fury. 

Darcy frowned and watched Fury put up no guard whatsoever as Tony took a swing. There was alcohol on his breath and desperate, drunken emotion in his walk which meant he wouldn't leave any lasting damage, but it had to have hurt. Pepper did nothing to stop him. Fury did nothing to stop him either. Darcy did nothing to stop him mainly because Tony had never listened to her and she'd be stupid to think he'd start when he was in his current state but also because she was still pretty sure that no one had noticed her yet. 

She took another sip from her lukewarm coffee before turning quietly on her heel and slipping back through the corridors to the back elevator, asking J.A.R.V.I.S. to take her back down to the lobby. 

Something uncomfortable settled in the bottom of her stomach. 

Fury stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, alone. Darcy stood from the hard wooden chair that she had claimed opposite the front desk and deposited her empty cardboard coffee mug into the trash on her way over to Fury.  

"You did the right thing." 

Fury's eyes widened minutely, even as he frowned at her. Darcy wasn't stupid enough to think he didn't know who she was, but she had surprised him by being there, and probably by being supportive. She watched him even when he was right in front of her, saw the thoughts whirring in his mind, saw him see her. 

They stood in front of each other for a minute, then Fury was the first to break away, side-stepping around Darcy and continuing until he left the building and ducked into the crowd outside and disappeared. 

* * *

A week later, the two men that had arrived last time turned up in Darcy's private quarters. Coulson smiled and Fury looked at her with a tilted head. After Director Coulson had personally recruited her for S.H.I.E.L.D. in a consultant-handler capacity, he went to go and find Clint and Natasha and left her with Fury in her kitchen. Darcy was mildly intimidated, but not really concerned, so she turned around to finish the washing up she had been tackling before she was interrupted. 

"You're good kid, Lewis. Keep watching out for the team and you'll have done a good job." 

Darcy finished scrubbing a particularly stubborn saucepan and set it on the sideboard to drain. She pulled off the yellow marigold gloves and placed them next to the sink before turning around to face Fury. 

"I'll look after my people, just as you look after yours. My people are not decided by who is on the team; my people are decided by who I care about." 

Darcy stared Fury down, waited for him to see it, then nodded and turned back to pull the plug out. The sound of the water running out almost-but-not-quite covers the sound of the door opening and closing again. When she turned around again, Fury was gone and she smiled. She wondered how he felt about being one of her people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fury starts to find parcels left for him at his office in S.H.I.E.L.D.. Some contain food, some contain strange new things that he frowns at and tries to ignore, some just contain angry letters telling him to eat or sleep or talk to her, dammit, or honestly if you want them to do something sometimes you have to explain some of your motives, moron. The first time he can't decide whether to be shocked or impressed when he finds a folder of quick and easy recipes dropped on his bed in his own house. He doesn't know how she found where he lived or how she got into the house, but if he leaves a tupperware container in his kitchen full of the first meal he had made from the recipe collection, no one needs to know. The only person who does know is the one who leaves the empty, cleaned container on his kitchen counter. Fury rolls his eyes. 
> 
> Deep in the bowels of S.H.I.E.L.D., in the tiniest broom-cupboard of an office, Darcy finishes scraping the plate clean.


	12. After Greenwich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Greenwich, Darcy decides she doesn't want to sit around in ignorance any more and goes looking to fight.
> 
> Or: Agent Darcy and The Fall

After Greenwich, Darcy's fed up being stuck pretending she knew what to do and trying to remember the sort of fighting she had seen on TV. She vaguely regrets not having gone to some sort of self-defense classes after New Mexico, but she has her taser and an alien attack is not something that usually happens twice. Or at all. (Of course there was the third one in New York but Jane and Darcy had been holed up in Norway by S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time so Darcy didn't really count it.)  

After Greenwich, Darcy sees Jane off to Asgard with her bae, checks that the labs will survive without her for a while, and buys a ticket for the next plane to New York. She doesn't know exactly where S.H.I.E.L.D. was, but she knows where some of their employers are—it would be hard to miss the towering reach of glass with a red 'A' stuck to the top. Agent Clint Barton from New Mexico is surprised to see her, but he takes her to where she wants to go. 

After Greenwich, Darcy spends approximately five months training in navy blue uniforms with new friends and new skills before Stephanie Igoric—the girl currently ranked five in their class with the best tips for hairstyles and the loud, honest laugh and the contraband chewing gum—pulls a gun and points the barrel straight into Darcy's face. Darcy acts on instinct and kicks out, knocking the gun down and then the girl. She hesitates for far too long, staring at a girl she thought was her friend, but suddenly alarms are blaring everywhere and Darcy grabs the weapon and runs. 

Darcy fights for five hours; back to back with some friends, face to face with others. For every face she sees, her brain automatically provides a short file and Darcy feels sick when she saw how many of them she has trusted, had considered close friends, had laughed with over lunch and scrapped with during training exercises. She wants to close her eyes every time she pulled the trigger, but she doesn't dare. Every burst of red sears itself onto her retinas and Darcy wants to throw up, but as soon as she considers the thought, Francis Balcon from the upper admin floors shoots her in the leg and Darcy shoots him in the shoulder. 

It's not until she's propped up against a wall peppered with bullets that someone tells her what happened. It's been seven hours since she saw Stephanie and two since she saw another live person, and her leg is throbbing underneath the tight rag of fabric Darcy had torn from the uniform of one of the agents lying prone on the carpeted floor. Jake Hollis, one of the agents who had joined in her recruiting wave, picks his way across the people scattered motionless, and Darcy drags her arm up to lazily direct the gun at him. 

"I'm not Hydra," he says.  

"I didn't think you were." 

Hollis' eyes caught on one of the faces and his face looks suspiciously like it's about to crumble.  

"I didn't think Agent Ohms was, either."  

Darcy keeps her hand up, despite its shaking, but she follows his gaze to the body of one of their trainers. For most of the bodies, it's impossible to tell what side any of them were on, but a few—including Agent Ohms—have white froth spilling from their mouths. Darcy's stomach lurches as she realizes what this means. 

"They were Hydra?" 

"Lewis, the whole organization was Hydra. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been Hydra for decades and no-one noticed." 

Darcy drops the hand with the gun back down. She's only mostly convinced that Hollis and she are on the same team, but the muscles in the top of her arm a spasming and she's really too weak to hold the threat any longer. The migraine she's been determinedly ignoring pushes for attention again and Darcy feels briefly like crying. She's considers the mess they're in and doubts Hollis would begrudge her tears but there's a hard knot in her throat that will unravel like slippery silk if she lets it go now. 

"Who else have we got?" 

"They won't tell much to anyone under Level Seven but Captain America and Black Widow have apparently dealt with a situation in D.C. and we've got the Hulk, Iron Man and Hawkeye upstairs. No-one seems exactly sure about where the Director and Deputy-Director are but Agent Long is co-ordinating efforts here." 

Darcy blinks slowly. Her migraine pulses heavily behind her right eye and she rubs it with the heel of a shaking hand. It comes away red and she frowns, but Hollis winces and touches his own forehead to mirror a cut she hadn't noticed on her own. The room blurs briefly and she asks Hollis if she'd be annoyed about her fainting. 

"Do you want some help?" He asks, concerned. Darcy attempts a shrug. 

"I've never passed out before, but I think I might." 

Hollis tells her not to worry about it and comes to duck under her left arm. When he pulls her up, the gun comes with her, entangled in the fingers of her right hand. The regulation boots are black and fitted and comfortable and practical, but they are heavy, and Darcy lets the toe of her injured leg drag instead of bothering to exert energy to lift it up. 

She blacks out for eleven floors in the elevator. When she comes to again, Hollis promises he won't tell anyone just as the doors open to reveal approximately thirty personnel in the co-ordination room. A medic appears at their shoulder and takes Darcy off of Hollis' hands to see to her, although he tags along for lack of much else to do. There aren't many other junior agents here, and Darcy feels another sickening twist when she wonders how easy a naive rookie looking to move up in the organisation could have been corrupted. She sees one other from their class; a tiny girl with long hair who breezed through their theory work and turned out to be surprisingly scrappy on the field. 

"Alice!" Her voice cracks half-way through even a one syllable name but Darcy doesn't care because for one, she got the girl's attention, and for two, she still has rubble-dust in her throat.  

Alice Capello jogs over to them, her tanned skin smeared with blood and sweat and some sort of ashy substance. Her eyes are lace pink-red but she smiles at them and drops to the floor next to Darcy, gesturing to Hollis to do the same. 

"We're all that's left of the marmites." Her smile falters.  

A look passed around the triangle as the same thought obviously occurred to them about the agent who coined the term. Beth Jones was an English new-graduate from Oxford who was scouted by the London-based S.H.I.E.L.D. team with a quick mind who had laughed when Alice asked for a translation of what Agent Reynolds meant by calling them 'cherries' and provided the Italian 'marmittone' to mean the same. Darcy watched Jones be shot in the chest three times by a man that had coached both girls for their first big theory test from across a room that had become a battlefield and only refrained from crying because someone was currently trying to do the same to her. 

Darcy winces as the medic begins on stitches in her leg and goes to change the subject, but is distracted by an angry volley of words from the clump of important people in the centre of the room, by the table. 

"Someone's leaking files! They've infiltrated the systems. What are they doing?" 

"Well it can't be Hydra, they can't possibly be stupid enough; it incriminates them more than it does us." 

"Stark if this is you." 

"Woah, woah, someone's quick to point fingers. It's not me. And for your information, I've already told J.A.R.V.I.S. to collect the information and try to stop it going any further." 

"Hey, everyone, please." 

Doctor Bruce Banner's voice is just about loud enough that Darcy can hear it from where she is, but it goes ignored by Tony Stark and the two agents he's arguing with. Banner's face flickers with a series of emotions that Darcy can't read and settles back into worn lines of mild discomfort and distrust.  

She doesn't really blame him. 

Another prick reminds Darcy of the stitches going into her leg and she asks Capello what went down on her end to try and ignore it. The small girl reels off her ordeal, which apparently began with the instructor in the gym getting shot, climaxed around the time Senior Agent Thomms tried to set fire to the computer bank in Room 31B on the 7th Floor, and ended with her dodging a thrown knife to make the elevator and watching the attacker be taken down by his girlfriend as the doors slid closed to bring her down here.  

"I've been down here a while," she says as the voices in the middle start rising again, "about an hour. We've had a couple of Hydra try to get in but they've been dealt with." She gestures to a corner Darcy had seen and refused to acknowledge, where a pile of bodies who wore their uniform over sick hearts and destructive minds was pressed into the fold of the walls.  

"Ah," Hollis says, his mouth twists in distaste and, not for the first time, Darcy wonders how he became S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place. She glances at the clock, plodding onwards resolutely, and sighs. This morning she had made a laughing comment about how it was sprinting through the hours. Now it was dragging like an inexperienced marathon runner hitting the last third of the race. The medic swiped over the stitches one last time with a stinging alcohol wipe, hands her another wipe for her head, moves on to the next injured without a word. Darcy figures there's time for backstory. 

Capello goes first. She describes in great detail an attempted robbery at her blind grandmother's house while she happened to be staying there on holiday. She also describes in great detail the state in which the five guys were escorted to hospital in. There's a savage pride in the smirk hovering around her mouth which makes Darcy blink and reassess the slight, slim Italian girl and her fierce eyes. 

Hollis stares at Capello for a few moments with a slightly slack jaw before he starts his story. His starts inside a jail-cell and he has to backtrack to explain the virus that got him there because it got into FBI files "by accident" and then he mentions Agent Coulson because he was apparently the one who had him released into the care of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of incarcerated. There's a brief moment of sobriety for the Agent who fell in the last apocalypse, but there are more agents scattered in various places above their heads and below their feet so Darcy picks up the thread pretty quickly. 

She recounts New Mexico and Thor and Agent Coulson and Agent Barton and the other goons and Loki. She enjoys the looks that they give her when she mentions gods like they're just her friends who live down the road and gives a sentence about Norway before moving on to London. The other two are suitably impressed with the amount of aliens she managed to face even before she came and battered S.H.I.E.L.D.'s door down with a demand for a job. 

The silence crashes into the knot of people in charge. It's so sudden that it actually startles the little group of 'marmites' and Darcy jolts around to look. The Senior Agents have sat at one end of the long conference table with a few sheets of paper between them while Banner and Stark have wandered away from them with frustrated footsteps that are just a little out of time. Agent Barton has appeared out of the vents and started pacing the perimeter. He balks when he sees Darcy. 

"Lewis? Shit Lewis, what are you doing here?" 

"You brought me here," Darcy says, head tilted and slightly bewildered because really, what did he think she wanted with S.H.I.E.L.D.? 

"I thought you were just going to bitch to someone about Foster, or Selvig, or Norway or something. Not sign up. Dammit Darcy, Thor and Foster will kill if something happens to you." 

"Tell them to get back to Earth then," she snaps and on either side of her, allies cross their arms and have her back. "I can handle myself. I handled myself before S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. taught me more and this is a minor hiccough." 

"Fuck, Darce." Clint drags a hand over his face and shakes his head. They bonded quickly under a blazing desert sky over drinks with far too much alcohol and local bars with crappy country music and sluggish truck drivers. They hadn't talked much since then, but he obviously considered her enough of a friend to use a nickname, so she addressed him just as informally. 

"Fuck you, Clint, I do what I want." 

Under his hand, a smile spreads. 

"I know. I was there at Viv's bar." 

The memory drags a laugh up from Darcy's stomach and she claps a hand to her own mouth before it can spiral into the hysteria that is waiting. 

"So anything you can tell us about what's going on?" She asks. Hollis and Capello relax and move from hostile to interested as soon as Clint slides down to the floor with them. He gives them as much information as he can but everything is still up in the air; the organisation has crumpled from within and while they're pretty sure everyone here is all that's left and all that's good, but everyone is still fondling their weapons wearily.  

Clint's quiver is full across his back, Darcy pulls her hand up again to show the gun stuck in stiff fingers, Capello makes a knife appear from somewhere, Hollis has a modified taser. Clint sees it, looks at Darcy and laughs. Darcy hears the edge in his voice and presses her hand into her stomach to stop her own broken emotions pouring out from between her lips in a laugh that's too sharp to be sane. She fails, and laughs anyway. Capello and Hollis don't know why they're laughing, but they join in because this has been a day from hell, and the four of them laugh too loud, too long, and too sharp.  

Every other agent in the room stares at them. Darcy just manages not to flip the bird. 

They quieten as food gets brought around and the low murmur that had been filling the space makes way for the sound of people falling on the food ravenously. 

The four of them split some sort of meat/burger/steak thing and a bottle of water. Clint pulls his quiver to the front, peels open a hidden compartment and winks as he draws out a bottle of vodka. They make sure they have a few pulls from it each, then send it around, palmed by the closest agents with instructions to pass it on. 

After three hours—ten hours since Stephanie pulled the gun—they are released. The barracks are closed because the fighting was there too, but hotels and alternative arrangements are made. Clint manages to wrangle them rooms at the Avengers Tower and Darcy says hi to Banner on behalf of Jane because her scientist has a research-crush on this scientist and Darcy would be in trouble if she didn't. When they get to the tower, Clint heads off to phone Black Widow and Stark shows them a suite they can use before heading off with Banner. 

The three of them drop into the one huge bed and don't care about personal boundaries. They whisper their first names to each other like permission granted and Darcy thinks of a line from a favourite book—there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and facing a war is one of them. 

Tomorrow, Darcy, Alice and Jake will band themselves together properly, but for now they fall asleep in a tangle of limbs and warmth and heartbeats that reassure each of them that these are friends and they are alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so i've had this one ready for soooo long and I was trying to put off posting it because i have nothing else for you guys after this until after mocks i guess but i gave up because i really love this one so i hope you do too x

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Terms and Conditions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7191230) by [notoneforreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality)
  * [What Tony is Willing to Do for Cookies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7338907) by [notoneforreality](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality)




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